


Anything at All

by Galli



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Childhood Trauma, F/M, Family Issues, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Love Confessions, Protectiveness, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2019-11-05 19:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17925221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galli/pseuds/Galli
Summary: There are a few things that Beast Boy knows for certain:He’s 21....and a total lightweight.He’s a vegan (but not like...a pretentious vegan).He’s not going to be single forever.And the Teen Titans are the only family he'll ever need.





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is the first fic I've ever actually completed, and I can't wait to finally share it! I had a lot of fun writing it. I'm currently in the editing process and hope to post regularly.

  


**Listen to the podfic version[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18090017/chapters/42760706)!**

 

Beast Boy watched as raindrops pounded against the side of the common room window, the sky a turbulent whirlwind of grays and blacks. Various equipment dotted the field far below, carelessly abandoned the moment Robin had called off training ‘due to weather conditions.’ The TV hummed quietly in the background against the rain, the kitchen lights glowing like street lamps in the dead of night.

“ _Finally_ ,” he said proudly, his hands and face pressed up against the cool glass. “The weather’s perfect.”

“Perfect?” a tired voice said a few feet behind him. “For what?” It was Raven, bundled up in the corner of the couch under a thick wool blanket. She was currently the only other person in the room, a large black book perched at the end of her hand like an enormous bird. “I thought you hated the rain.”

Beast Boy pushed off the glass, returning to the warmth.  “I hate getting _wet_ . Wet dog is not a good look. Even for real dogs.” He walked over to the coffee table in the center of the room. “But this," he said, getting on his knees to pull a large cardboard box out from underneath, " _This_ is great."

He heaved the box onto the table, scooting magazines and abandoned plates off to the side. "I’ve been waiting for it to rain—and I mean really _pour_ —for a while now.”

“Because...?” Raven asked, as she watched him begin to dig through the box.

“Becaaaaaaaaause,” Beast Boy said, drawing out the word dramatically. “This time, I'm gonna come out on top." As he said this, he lifted the box, shaking out a dozen items or so onto the table. Among them were a slingshot, an roll of chicken wire, some old hot wheels, and two empty milk cartons.

“Please don’t tell me this is another one of your ridiculous pranks,” Raven said begrudgingly, adjusting her position.

Beast Boy shot her two finger guns with a click of his tongue. “Hell yeah it is, baby.”

“Do you really think I want anything to do with...whatever this is?” she said, vaguely gesturing toward the items on the table.

“Nope,” Beast Boy said, a little too enthusiastically.

“Then _why_ are you showing it to me?”

“Because,” Beast Boy said, starting to arrange the treasures before him. “I wanna run the idea by someone while Cy's busy fixing his car. And since I know you don’t actually care, I don't have to worry about you ruining the surprise. Which--side note--" he said, pulling away from the growing structure to examine it, "Never give Starfire the nuke codes.”

Raven rolled her eyes again. But just as she was about to lift her book back up to block him from view, Beast Boy stuck his hand out to stop her.

“No, you’re gonna wanna see this. _Trust me_.” He grabbed a well-worn Batman figurine that he’d set off to the side. "Okay, so pretend this is Cyborg," he said, planting it at one corner of the mousetrap-like schematic.

Raven just frowned. "Is that...Robin's?"

Beast Boy squinted at the figure, biting his lip. “Eh...Not important." He planted the figure in a square marked off with string labeled 'GARAGE.' One of the hotwheels sat parked in this section.

"Cy's been so busy lately, he'll never see this coming'," Beast Boy said with a smirk. "Next time he heads down to the garage, I’ll have everything already set up. First move--he’ll trip this wire right here.” He pointed to a piece of string as he said this. "And that's when shit hits the fan."

"Please tell me you don't mean that literally," Raven said, wrinkling her nose.

Beast Boy just flashed her a devious smile. “We’ll get there.”

The demonstration took at least two minutes to run through, Beast Boy talking the entire time. By the end, most of his props were either on the floor or halfway across the room.

“...And to wrap it all up,” he said, not pausing to take a breath, “This catapult will trip this switch here, opening the window over here, and then the wagon from over here will send him sliding out into the mud, rolling down the hill and into this huge puddle riiiiiiight...here.” He pointed at a spot on the table marked with a fridge magnet 'X', a huge grin on his face. "After a storm like this one, that whole area's gonna be a lake. A super gross, slimy, stinky lake of prank legend. It’ll take him at least a week to get the stench out.”

Raven stared at the exhibit before her. Her eyes had followed every one of Beast Boy's movements in complete silence.

“So? Whaddya think?” he asked, rising and breathlessly plopping down on the couch beside her. “Pretty impressive, huh?”

Raven glanced at the table, then at him, then ultimately, back down at her book. “Yeah. You’re a genius.”

“Oh come _on_ , Raven!” Beast Boy whined, throwing his arms out, gesturing back to the miniature metropolis. “That took me like...a month to come up with!”

Raven turned the page with a sigh. "Maybe if you weren’t so busy investing all of your time and energy into coming up with useless pranks, you’d actually have some left over for important things.”

“Like…?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” she said, holding out her hand with a shrug. “Things like doing the dishes or checking the mail--or maybe actually learning how to carry your weight in a fight. Don’t know how to help you with that last one though.”

Beast Boy frowned. “Just because you can’t appreciate _art_ doesn’t mean it’s useless,” he said, leaning over to the table and using his arm to corral the items back into their box. The ones scattered on the floor became enveloped in small clouds of purple. Beast Boy held the box open, as Raven directed them into the container.

“And I do too carry my weight!" he said, sliding the box back under the couch.

“That’s...debatable.”

Coming from anyone else, he might have actually been hurt by the remark. But coming from Raven, it was a challenge more than anything else.

“Oh yeah?” Beast Boy said, a determined smile crossing his face. “Then carry _this_!”

With a running start off the cushions, he jumped off the back of the couch and into the air, morphing mid-flip. When he landed, the ground shook and the ceiling lights swung back and forth violently. The TV remote and discarded plates clattered off the coffee table and onto the floor. Beast Boy shook his head, flapping his huge green ears. He reared back and stomped down on the kitchen floor, proudly lifting his elephant’s trunk to let out a loud trumpet.

Raven glanced over her shoulder at him, clearly unimpressed. She turned back to her book, lifting a hand in the air as she did so.

Suddenly Beast Boy found himself surrounded in black shadow...and his feet began to lift off the ground. He automatically began to squirm in a half-hearted attempt to bring himself down, but it was a lost cause.

Raven lifted him higher and higher until, when he was barely a foot from the ceiling, the shadow disappeared in a flash--and he felt himself hurtling downward. With one last elephant screech of alarm he quickly shifted again, plopping onto the ground with four nimble tabby cat paws.

Without missing a beat, he crouched down and leapt up onto the back of the couch and then down onto the cushion beside Raven. He transformed back, kicking up his feet on the table, arms folded across his chest. “Smartass.”

Raven was still looking down at her book, but Beast Boy could see the faintest hint of a smile on her face.

After a moment, he felt--and heard--his stomach growl about as loudly as any animal he’d ever been.  

“Eugh, I’m starving. Pranking really does take a lot out of ya,” he said, springing to his feet once more. He headed to the kitchen just behind them--where there was always at least one bag of chips to be found in the pantry. This time it was Fritos--not a bad option at all.

“You want anything?” Beast Boy called over his shoulder, opening the fridge.

“I’m fine.”

In Raven’s secret, minimalist language, he’d learned that that usually meant ginger ale.

“Behind,” he said, chucking the last can of Canada Dry cranberry over his shoulder. Raven caught it and cracked it open in the air, all without even lifting a finger.

Beast Boy grabbed a root beer for himself and swung over the back of the couch again reclaiming his seat.

He looked up at the TV, which was still on in the background. He hadn’t paid any attention to it since he’d entered the room. The images that flashed by on the screen were dark and dramatic. It was mostly just video footage from a shaky night vision camera, rounded out with low budget murder re-enactments. “So what’re we watching?" he asked, shoving a handful of Fritos into his mouth. A doll with bloodshot eyes and a cracked face appeared in the corner as it cut to commercial. "Er...pretending to watch?” he asked.

“Ghost Adventures,” Raven replied.

“Seriously?” Beast Boy said, cracking open the root beer. It immediately started fizzing over, and he tried his best to lick up the extra foam. “You know that stuff is like...totally fake, right?”

"Of course it is," she said, not even looking up at the screen. "If opening interdimensional portals of that magnitude were so easy, my dad would've destroyed Earth _ages_ ago."

“Then why do you watch this garbage?”

Raven let out an exhausted sigh. “I dunno. It’s kind of like...when you have so much _actual_ demon shit going on in your life, watching the fake stuff is kinda...refreshing.” She flipped to the next page in her book. “You can change the channel if you want. I’ve already seen this episode.”

Beast Boy swiped the remote off the floor and was about to automatically click to one of his few go-to channels when Raven quickly interjected.

“—Just as long as you don’t put on American Ninja Warrior. Or The Carbonaro Effect. Or anything else in that vein.”

Beast Boy slumped in his seat. “What else is there?”

Just like the soda can and hot wheels before, the remote lifted out of Beast Boy’s grip and floated to the other side of the couch, landing in Raven’s free hand.

"Houses or food?" She asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Uh..." Beast Boy said, rubbing his chin. "Houses?"

The image on the screen changed drastically, cutting to a montage of different townhouses, highlighting their pros and cons. Then it flashed to a generic couple at a generic restaurant, two generic margaritas sitting in front of them.

Suddenly, a familiar, flighty voice echoed down the hallway behind them. “Hello, friends!” Starfire proclaimed as she entered the room. “I heard a loud crashing noise and came to see if everyone is—Oooo!” she squealed, the worry immediately dropping from her voice. “Are we watching the hunters of houses?”

“We are now,” Beast Boy said, taking another sip of his soda and setting it down on the table.

Starfire flew over to the couch in a heartbeat. “I have already seen this episode but it is enjoyable nonetheless,” she said, taking a seat next to Beast Boy, along with a handful of Fritos. “But I do love attempting to guess which house they will choose!”

“Didn’t you just say you’ve already seen this episode?” Beast Boy said, forfeiting the bag to Starfire, who was about to finish it off.

“Of course! But I do not remember which one they picked,” she said with a smile. “I hope it is the one with the crown of molding. It has so much _character_. At least, that is what the female voice always says.”

“Crown molding isn’t character,” Raven said, lowering her book again. “Character is when the realtor tells them that the former owner was a serial killer, and if you squint you can still see the blood stains in dining room where she chopped up her victims." She paused, exchanging a glance with a confused Starfire and disgusted Beast Boy. "And it has the original wood floors," she added hastily.

“But Raven!” Starfire exclaimed. “The with the mold comes with access to a pool of community swimming!”

Beast Boy shook his head. “You guys’ve both got it wrong. Character and pools aren’t important to them. They just said so,” he said, gesturing to the screen. “They need to pick the one in the suburbs. It’s the most realistic and the best bang for their buck.” He began counting off the assets on his fingers. “It’s close to downtown without being in it. Finished basement. Renovated kitchen. Plus they said they’re planning on having kids, and it’s in the best school district outta the three.”

The two looked at him, wide eyed and blinking.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Raven said. “I just never realized you actually possessed critical thinking skills.”

Beast Boy stuck out his tongue at her with a grimace.

Starfire giggled. “Well, I only hope that no matter which residence they select, they will live a joyful and prosperous life together!” Saying this, she clasped her hands together over her chest, looking off somewhere far away.

“I give it six months,” Raven said flatly.

Before the final reveal, the TV flashed to commercial again, now advertising soap and vacation cruises only old rich people could afford.

“Hmm..." Starfire hummed. "I forgot why it was that I originally came down here." She tapped her finger at the corner of her mouth. “Oh! The big thud! No one is hurt then?"“

“If you don't count hurt pride,” Raven said, a subtle smirk on her lips.

“Haha very funny,” Beast Boy said, crossing his arms.

But he immediately perked up as the ad on the TV switched. Now a chorus of joyful screams came from the speakers as a steel roller coaster completed a loop. Next it cycled through the images of a huge Ferris wheel and streets crammed with food carts and games.

“Oh, dude! I totally forgot!” he said, jumping to his feet. “The state fair opens this weekend!"

“Fair?” Starfire questioned, the same look of confusion still on her face. “As in the just and right?”

“No, no, no,” Beast Boy said, shaking his head. “Like the _fair._ You know...” He waved his hands in front of him as if painting an imaginary picture. “Sketchy rides, rigged games, shitty oversized stuffed animals..." He counted off the pros on his fingers once more. "And anything and everything you can think to eat--deep fried.”

"Deep...fried?" Starfire asked, her finger still at the corner of her mouth, eyes open wide.

Raven looked at Beast Boy, skeptical. “Is _that_ your sales pitch?”

Beast Boy ignored her, continuing to talk to the one captivated member of his audience. “They also have performances, and auctions, and hella fuckin’ huuuuge vegetables. Stuff like that. Usually around the same place where they keep the farm animals.”

“Farm animals?!” Starfire said, her eyes lighting up with an intensity Beast Boy had not anticipated. “Do you think they will have...GOATS?”

“Uh...probably?” he shrugged.

“Oh, excellent!” Starfire said, jumping to her feet as well, tackling him with one of her trademark rib-crushing hugs. Luckily, she released him before he forgot how to breathe. “Oh how I long to see the small sideways-eyed sheep!” she said, hands shooting up to either side of her face.

“I mean,” Raven shrugged, “if you really wanna see a goat that bad...you don’t _have_ to go to the fair to do it.” She nodded in Beast Boy’s direction.

“Oh, but Raven,” Starfire said, now flying over to her, claiming a corner of the blanket as her own, “It would be much more exciting to see multiple goats of many shapes and sizes simultaneously. Besides,” she shook her head with a pout, “Beast Boy cannot transform into the baby goat! At least, not that I am aware of.”

“She’s got a point, Rave,” Beast Boy said, taking another sip of his root beer.

Raven hunched her shoulders. “Fairs are just dirty, overcrowded, unapologetic government cash grabs.”

“But they have goooooaaaats,” Beast Boy said tauntingly, his comment immediately followed by another squeal from Starfire.

Raven just shook her head, returning to her book again. “We have more important things to do than go to the fair.”

“Like what?” Beast Boy said. “Sit around and read dusty old books all day?”

Just then, the three were interrupted by yet another voice, this one deep and mellow.

“Jesus. Well that was a shitshow.”

Cyborg walked into the room panting, covered in grease, with a towel in one hand and a large, techy looking cube in the other.

“What happened?” Beast Boy asked, hanging over the back side of the couch, turning to address him.

“This fucking battery,” Cyborg said, dropping the cube on the counter, “decided to short circuit on me, right when _everything_ was coming together.” He sighed. “Fried the whole system.”

“Oof,” Beast Boy sighed.

“I am very sorry to hear that,” Starfire frowned.

“It’ll take me at least two weeks to get all the parts I need to fix it,” Cyborg said, cracking open the fridge. He pulled out some sandwich essentials—turkey, provolone, tomatoes. Then he grabbed some bread and mustard, generously coating the former with the latter. “Which _means_ we’re gonna be out of a ride for a while. At least in terms of low profile transportation. Because I don’t think we can count Robin’s bike in the mix.”

“That is quite alright, Cyborg,” Starfire said, a little too enthusiastically. “I have always wanted an excuse to make use of the system of transportation for the public,” she beamed.

“Starfire. You can fly,” he said flatly in response.

“Yes, but the complicated schedules and routes of the buses is such a fascinating concept to me. And I would like to experience it with my first hand.”

Cyborg just blinked as if attempting to get rid of the thought altogether. He turned back to the fridge. “Aw man, are we all out of ginger ale?”

“Raven got the last one,” Beast Boy said, nodding back at her.

“Sorry,” she said, actually sounding a little bad about it.

“And we’re also out of pickles...sriracha...and,” Cyborg took a bottle in his hand and gave it a shake “ _my seasonal, limited edition pumpkin spice creamer_?”

Starfire immediately ducked behind the couch, a pout on her face. “My deepest apologies, friend,” she said quietly. “I have quite a weakness for both the pumpkins and the spices.”

“This is chaos,” Cyborg said, giving up and closing the fridge door. “What are we? Animals?”

Beast Boy smiled, but before he could make a move, Cyborg pointed directly at him.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, dude,” he said, sitting back down. “We’ll go shopping later after it stops raining.”

“And how do you suppose we get there? Drive? Fly? How’re we gonna carry all the groceries back?”

Starfire gasped. “The public transportation!”

Just then, the airlock door slid open at the other end of the room for a third time, and the only other person who could have walked through it did.

“Oh, good, everyone’s already here,” Robin said, making his entrance. In his right hand, he was gripping a large, rolled up sheet of paper of some sort. Something like a map.

“Uh...yeah man, we live here,” Beast Boy laughed.

Robin just stared at everyone for a moment, and it became clear he had been referring to something a little more specific. His brow furrowed. “Really guys? You didn’t remember?”

Everyone just stared back at him silently.

Robin ran his hand over his face, as if wiping away his exhaustion. “We’re supposed to be having a team meeting right now.”

“Hey, I remembered,” Cyborg said defensively, between a bite of his sandwich.

“Only because I ran into you in the hallway on my way up here, and you asked me where I was going,” Robin said, crossing his arms.

Cyborg just smiled sheepishly.

Robin sighed, heading over to the couch. “I know these things sometimes seem redundant, but for once I actually do have something we need to talk about.”

“Washing machine broken again?” Cyborg asked playfully, looking at Beast Boy as he said it.

“Hey, that wasn’t me, and you know it,” Beast Boy retorted.

“Well it wasn’t _me_ ,” Cyborg said, gesturing to himself. “I don’t even _wear_ clothes.”

Robin lifted a hand and the two fell silent immediately. “Unfortunately, this is a little more serious than blaming each other for not taking out the trash or cleaning the bathroom.” As he said this, he pulled out the paper, spreading it out on the table, scooting Beast Boy’s root beer carefully to the corner.

The sheet of paper, more like an architectural blueprint really, showed detailed layouts of specific areas throughout Jump City. There were multiple lines drawn here and there connecting one section to another, notes scrawled in the all of the margins.

“The technology we have is pretty good at keeping track of our battles,” Robin started. “Who the main aggressor was, if they were alone or accompanied, what seemed to be their ultimate goal in the battle. Their predicted attack patterns based on past fights…” He paused. “But there are some things a computer can’t tell you--no offense, Cy,” he said, with a subtle smile.

“None taken,” Cyborg laughed in return.

“Anyway,” Robin continued, turning back to the map, “sometimes you just feel a certain way about something. The data might not show it outright, but your gut is telling you something’s off.” He sighed. “Usually these battles are a one-time thing—we get in we get out—and the criminal is acting either alone or with a relatively short term goal. But the past two or three missions, I’ve been noticing some patterns.”

Robin pointed to one of the circled locations in the bottom left corner of the map. “Lower East side, about three weeks ago today. We were attacked by that group on androids at that EPA lab. I went back to ask some questions the next day. The woman I spoke to seemed just as surprised about the attack as anyone else. All of the EPA’s data is in the public domain. The building itself is on a pretty tight lockdown due to standard government procedures. But there isn’t really much there to...steal. At least not information wise,” Robin said, hand on the back of his neck. “Those assholes left behind a pretty big mess, but they only stole one thing. A piece of equipment called a mass spectrometer. From what the woman explained to me, it’s a pretty standard piece of machinery in their line of work. Nothing incredibly special. She said it was probably one of the more valuable machines in the lab--some of them can be worth up to 100k. But that just doesn’t settle it for me,” he said, shaking his head. “If the criminals just wanted money, they would’ve robbed a bank. They have about the same level of security.”

“I mean...they probably wanna use it for something then,” Beast Boy suggested. “You know, cut out the middleman.”

“She told me these machines are most commonly used to test drug metabolism rates, or analyze blood samples. Forensics stuff,” Robin said, staring back down at the paper. “Stuff that would be useful on our end. Not theirs.” As he said this, he reached into his pocket and took out a small coin-like object. “The woman said that they found this jammed in one of the machines the morning after.”

He placed the coin onto the table. Everyone automatically leaned over to reach for the shiny silver circle, but Cyborg was the one who got hold of it first. It was bent poorly out of shape, but still had some faintly legible lettering visible on it. Cyborg zoomed in as far as he could with his one eye, the lens taking a moment to focus on the miniscule letters.

“A....R....S....E…” he read aloud. “And then something else. That’s all I can make out. Shit’s pretty worn down.” He handed it to Starfire. Raven leaned in to look at it over her shoulder.

Beast Boy quickly clasped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. The laughter was already erupting out of him. Everyone turned to look at him.

“May I ask what’s so funny?” Robin said, unamused.

“It’s just--” Beast Boy said, struggling to hold another cackle in .”Oh, come on! Arse? Like Ass?” he said, tears beginning to form in his eyes.

“We are fighting ass monsters?” Starfire said, disgusted.

Cyborg couldn’t hold back a laugh at that and snorted along with Beast Boy.

Raven rolled her eyes.

“No,” Robin said with a completely straight face.

Beast Boy reeled himself back, his laughter suppressed for now, but a grin still firmly on his face.

Robin cleared his throat. “Anyway...that brings me to my next point.” He reached into his pocket again, this time pulling out a small chip, like an identification tag. He placed it on the table. There were several letters missing on this one as well. “S, E, N,” Robin spelled out aloud. “They’re made of the same metal.”

Beast Boy looked down at the tag. This fight he did remember. It had taken place just a few days ago--at the local aquarium of all places. A break in that had escalated into a full blown hostage situation. They’d handled it, more or less, and no one had gotten hurt. Still, it all seemed like a lot more trouble than some fish were worth.

“But those were real people we fought at Franklin,” Cyborg said, frowning.

"We don’t know that for sure,” Robin replied. “And even if they were, that doesn’t mean the two attacks weren’t related.” He scanned some of the notes scribbled in the left hand margin of the map. “When I went back to Franklin Aquarium post battle, I decided to also check in with their adjunct Marine Biology research and conservation lab. Robin stared down at the tag. "I asked the researchers if they'd heard anything about the break in at the EPA. They hadn't--but said they’d worked on projects with them in the past. Again, no one had a good explanation for why anyone would want to target the aquarium like that. Besides property damage, the criminals didn’t leave much of a mark. At least, not one that they could prove.” Here, Robin flipped over the sheet of paper, revealing that the other side was covered in even more notes, even some crudely drawn diagrams.

“A man working at the head of R&D told me that they’d recently come into possession of a rare species of cuttlefish,” Robin continued. “And after the attack, it had gone missing. They said missing because they weren’t sure if it was stolen or killed during the general destruction.”

"Excuse me, Robin, but what is a fish of cuddles?" Starfire asked.

“A cuttlefish,” he repeated. “It's kinda like a squid. I didn’t understand exactly what was so important about it at first. Not until I took a look at the remains of the exhibit for myself." Saying this, Robin reached into his pocket and took out his phone, scrolling through it for a moment. "Most animals that change their color for camouflage do so on a pretty superficial level. Something to do with having specialized cells for changing color or creating patterns on their skin. But the species they lost at Franklin had only been discovered about a year ago. It was one of the only ones in captivity."

Without a word, Robin stopped scrolling and looked at Beast Boy. He handed him the phone, not even glancing at the other three.

Beast Boy grabbed the phone without asking questions. On the screen was a clear picture of an information sign under a vacant exhibit. Robin’s eyes still on him, he got the silent memo that he was supposed to read it aloud.

"Sepiida omneforman,” he started, having no idea what the words were _supposed_ to sound like, “otherwise known as the South-African clay fish, is one of the rarest species of cuttlefish in the world. First discovered in 2017, by a group of researchers from Johannesburg, the clay fish is widely believed to be similar to the common cuttlefish in diet and habitat. Like their octopus kin, clay cuttlefish hide from enemies with chromatic camouflage and clouds of ink. However, they are one of the only living creatures suspected to also possess limited 'shape-shifting' abilities.” At this Beast Boy paused--just a beat. “Named so for these abilities, the clay fish is capable of reorganizing its structural DNA in order to create false appendages and skin textures/colorization at will. These abilities may help the clay fish to intimidate possible predators or allow it to better blend in with its surroundings. Scientists are currently researching the clay fish’s unique genome, with the hope of discovering more efficient ways to conduct gene therapy in modern medicine."

Beast Boy lowered the phone. He raised an eyebrow. “That's what everyone's so worked up about? Some fish that can kinda shapeshift?" He tossed the phone back to Robin. "Pffft. I figured that party trick out ages ago,” he said, kicking up his feet on the table, closing his eyes. “They coulda just asked,” he said with a smile. “I’m always happy to help the greater good.”

“I don’t know, Beast Boy,” Robin said. “They told me that they were eventually planning on breeding them. So that they’d have some to...experiment on.”

Beast Boy instantly perked up. He caught a glimpse of Raven in his peripheral, who drew a finger across her throat.

“Okay, yeah,” he said, swallowing hard. “I see your point.”

Starfire was looking down at the floor. She had been for most of the meeting.

“Is something wrong, Star?” Robin asked, looking over at her.

She met his eyes, but she still seemed a little distraught. “Why did you not tell us sooner?”

Robin rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I just...wasn’t sure they were really related. And I guess I’m still now a hundred percent sure.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to give you all anything more to worry about.”

“So...what should we do?” Raven asked, also breaking her silence. But for her, silence through an entire meeting was pretty normal.

Robin bit his lip. “Well...that’s just it. I don’t know that there really is anything we _can_ do differently.” He furrowed his brow, deep in thought. “All I’m saying is to keep on your toes. Unlike regular missions, if another one of these attacks happens, it might be something we can anticipate. And if we can predict it, we might be able to shut down before it really gets off the ground. Being even just half a step ahead of the game could save lives.”

“Don’t worry, Robin,” Beast Boy grinned, leaping up to his feet. “I got eyes like a hawk and ‘m quiet as the mouse he eats for breakfast.” He started to take a step forward to clasp a hand on Robin’s shoulder. But as soon as his foot hit the ground, a sharp pain shot up his leg and he started to wobble. Beast Boy crashed forward, his left arm slamming into the edge of the table on the way down. The whiz of a neglected hot wheels car faded as it zipped under the couch.

“Beast Boy! Are you the alright?” Starfire started with real concern in her voice.

Cyborg was busy looking under the couch to try and find the source of his fall.

“Eughhh...” he groaned, sitting up. He looked up at the table, where his half empty can of root beer had finished itself off. Beast Boy grit his teeth as he watched the sugary liquid crawl to every corner of the table--and Robin’s map.

Robin just stood there for a moment, looking down at it. He sighed, then hesitantly reached out and lifted the sticky brown paper from the table, watching as the excess root beer tricked off of it. “I guess I’ve made my point.”

“At...least it didn’t get on the carpet?” Beast Boy said, on his knees now. But that was a lie. It was on the carpet too.

“We’re doomed,” Raven said from the other side of the couch, rubbing her temples.

Beast Boy wasn’t sure why, but this time, Raven’s offhand remark actually stung--even more so than Robin’s.

But before anyone had time to say anything else, the room suddenly went dark. A blaring noise cut through the air. The TV flashed from suburban homes to a complex status report screen, showing a grid map of the city honed in on a specific location—the West Regional Bank. In the bottom left, a popup window began to stream security camera footage, showing several shadowy figures running down a hallway. One stopped for only a second, pointing a gun at the camera, which consequently short circuited and faded to static.

Without a word, Robin started running. Starfire and Cyborg followed close behind.

Raven sighed, as if she _really_ weren’t in the mood, but turned to follow as well.

Beast Boy looked back up at the TV screen quickly. “I never even got to see which house they picked,” he mumbled to himself.

“Beast Boy!” Robin’s voice echoed down the hall.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he yelled back, as he begrudgingly turned to bring up the rear. The sidekick slot, they called it. Beast Boy sighed as he took off. He’d been ending up there a lot lately.

 


	2. The First Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to get this next chapter out! I've been very busy lately. Hopefully things should be getting a little more consistent soon.
> 
> Enjoy!

  


**Listen to the podfic version[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18090017/chapters/42982592)!**

 

Lately, Beast Boy had decided that his least favorite part of being called out on a mission was changing into uniform. Calling it a uniform and not a costume made it only slightly less embarrassing.

He understood the point of it—at least from Robin’s perspective. But the rest of them didn’t have much of an alternate identity anyway, so the costume always seemed a little redundant. Like Raven had pointed out when they first met, trying to ‘conceal your civilian identity’ seemed a little pointless when you were green. But they’d still kept it up all these years regardless. Robin’s leniency toward costume redesigns was the one saving grace.

Beast Boy quickly grabbed a pair of slick black athletic pants off the floor, along with a form fitting long sleeve shirt. It was still raining outside and, heading into October, that meant it was probably pretty cold out there too. Both pieces were relatively plain, save for a few purple accents here and there and several obnoxious zippers. He strapped on his extra-grip running shoes as tightly as he could without cutting off his circulation. He’d learned from experience that this was a necessary evil.

Before running out the door, he made sure to grab one last thing. A red and white sports jacket that he’d been recently trying to incorporate into his look. Raven always complained that he needed to just pick one color scheme and stick with it—the purple and black or the red white—but Beast Boy refused. She told him the jacket was stupid, and actually seemed actively annoyed by the clashing colors. So naturally he wore it every opportunity he got.

He glanced at the clock on his desk, muttering a curse under his breath. He darted out of his room, nearly tripping around the corner as he ran. It had only been a minute or two, but sometimes that wasn’t fast enough for Robin. The guy seemed to _live_ in his uniform. Beast Boy suspected he always had on it underneath whatever he was wearing--just like in the movies.

By the time he got to the garage, only Robin and Cyborg were still there—Robin about to hop on his bike, Cyborg tinkering with his car again.

“There you are,” Robin said, in the middle of putting on his helmet.

“Sorry,” Beast Boy panted.

“Don’t apologize,” Robin said flatly. “Apologies don’t fix mistakes. Actions do. Just try and get here sooner next time.”

“Right,” Beast Boy said. The words weren’t unfair or mean spirited, but they did leave him with a small pit in his stomach. Raven could teleport anywhere in an instant. Cyborg didn’t even have to change. And any time Starfire was ever late or unprepared for a battle, Robin barely seemed to noticed. Maybe that was one of the perks of dating your team leader.

“I’ve already sent Star and Raven out to do some recon. You should try and catch up to them,” Robin said, revving the engine.

Cyborg had stood up from behind the car, and was now typing away at a keypad on his arm. “Just sent their location to your transmitter. You shouldn’t be too far behind them.”

“On it,” Beast Boy nodded.

Without looking back he turned on his heels and started running as fast as he could—at least in his human form. Then, in one quick movement, the ground disappeared from under his feet, replaced with the damp, whirling air of a rainy day.

He hadn’t been lying earlier. With a hawk’s eye view he really could see every detail below him—everything from the man shushing his child at the bus stop to the woman handing out religious pamphlets on the corner of the street. If the clouds hadn’t been blocking it, he figured he probably would have had a pretty good view of the sunset. Instead, the sky was dark and gray. The city easily made up for it with every streetlight, headlight, and illuminated office building that cut through the rain.

The bank was just around the corner--the sirens and flashing lights confirmed it.

Beast Boy glided down to the roof of a shorter building just across the street from all the action. He perched on the back of a patio chair--one among many on the rooftop. The air smelled like coffee and freshly baked bread, even through the rain. And based on the number of sparrows that scattered when he landed, he figured the roof had to belong to a restaurant or coffee shop. The thought alone was enough to make his stomach rumble again. Turns out two handfuls of Fritos couldn’t really count as a meal.

Beast Boy whipped his transmitter out of his pocket and clicked the button on the side.

“I’m here,” he said, looking around. “Not sure exactly where everyone else is.”

“Hold on a sec,” Cyborg’s voice crackled through his ear. “They just left. Heading west in pursuit. Towards the outskirts of town.” The sound of frantic typing echoed through the speaker. “Their signal’s dying though. Fast. I think I’m gonna lose ‘em any second.”

Beast Boy smiled, even though no one could see. “Piece a cake.”

He slid the transmitter back into his pocket and leapt off the building once more. He flew directly over the sea of blaring lights and sirens, bypassing them entirely. Two blocks ahead, he dove into an alley and landed on all fours. Fortunately, the GPS he had up his sleeve was powered by smell, not cellular signal. And in this kind of weather, a green wolf prowling through the shadows could easily be mistaken for a mangy stray dog.

The rain admittedly made things more difficult. Every trace of a scent he found was vague and foggy. But he was confident he’d find the trail eventually--the scent he was looking for was hard to miss.

After trotting through the shadows for a good ten minutes, he finally caught what he was looking for. The aroma itself, sweet and slightly smoky, was faint at first. But it was so distinctly different from every other smell—exhaust fumes, humidity, and now wet dog--that just one whiff was enough to send him into a small sneezing fit.

The buildings around him had begun to change pretty drastically as well. Instead of skyscrapers, narrow apartment buildings made up the majority of the street face. He passed an old-fashioned gas station with only three pumps. Several men were standing outside the convenience store connected to it, laughing and smoking cigarettes. Another block down he passed a 24 hour pizza place that was totally empty. Then another convenience store with a busted neon sign. The street lights changed for only a few passing cars. He could count the number of people he saw on four paws--one of them a stray cat that had hissed at him violently as he passed.

Beast Boy knew he was still very much in the city--but he didn’t know where. Somehow even with the lights and the people and the apartments, it felt like he was trekking through a ghost town. A place that the rest of the city had forgotten about altogether. He couldn’t explain why exactly, but his breath suddenly felt more labored and tired. Like each time he exhaled it was more of a sigh. A shadow of sadness he couldn’t trace back to any one thing in particular.

When the ground shifted from asphalt to grass, he breathed a sigh of relief. The dewy forest floor felt so much more natural when he was in this form. Needless to say, the relief was not just physical. As he put more and more distance between himself and the streets behind, the sentiment began to fade. And it disappeared completely the moment he spotted some flaming red hair poking through the trees.

He bounded forward and leapt into the air, sneezing mid-transformation. To top it all off, he quickly realized that the ground beneath him wasn’t so much ground anymore as it was a pile of mud. A pile of mud he promptly slid right into.

“Beast Boy!” Starfire gasped.

“’Sup ladies,” he said with a wink, meeting Raven’s eye roll from the ground.

“How were you able to locate us?” Starfire asked, helping him up. “We do not have any of the signal.”

Beast Boy stood, trying (and failing) to wipe the mud off his jacket. “Oh, that was easy,” he said, flicking some off his shoulder. “Raven _stinks_.”

 Raven glared at him, her eyes two menacing slits under a cloak of shadow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You always smells like that weird store downtown,” he continued. “With the Buddha statues and weed socks.”

He should’ve seen her next move coming--but of course he hadn’t.

Suddenly Beast Boy’s footing gave and he found himself on the ground again-- _magically_ \--like he’d never gotten up in the first place. Raven was looking over him.

“It’s called _incense_. And I’ve never set a foot in that disgusting store in my life.”

Beast Boy got to his feet again. This time unassisted. “Well it stinks,” he said dramatically wrinkling his nose. “Why can’t you just burn sugar cookie candles like a normal person?”

Raven frowned. “Well at least I don’t smell like a soggy doggy daycare,” she replied.

Beast Boy looked down at his drenched, and now _very_ muddy, clothing. No grade of athletic fabric would have been enough to save him from the laundry he’d be doing after a fall like that.

“So you have no news from Robin?” Starfire quickly interjected, looking around a little more urgently than either of them.

“I think he was about to head this way—maybe he’s asking some questions back at the bank?” Beast Boy shrugged. He instinctively reached for his transmitter. “Lemme check if I have any bars.”

Flipping the device open in his palm, he squinted at the top left corner. Miraculously, he had a flickering signal--if only for a second. The number in the top right hit 2%...then 1%...and then the device shut off entirely. He snapped it shut.

“Uh--nope, nothing. No bars,” he said, biting his lip.

“Oh, glorbnaf,” Starfire said under her breath.

Beast Boy looked around them, but could only make out the shadowy outlines of the towering trees. Out here, the only light they had to guide them was the glow from Starfire’s eyes.

“Sooooo...”

“We just lost them,” Raven said flatly.

Beast Boy grit his teeth. ““...What’re we gonna tell Robin?”

“Exactly what I just told you. Unless you have a better idea.”

Beast Boy looked around the clearing they were all stopped in. And when he really started to absorb his surroundings, the feeling from the streets returned again. He couldn’t place what it was, but something didn’t feel right. It was something about the ground. Now that he wasn’t running across it or slipping in a mud puddle, he could feel something. _Hear_ something deep below.

“Hold on a sec,” he said, furrowing his brow. Instantly, the green elephant from earlier reappeared in the clearing, landing with a crash. Starfire and Raven’s eyes both widened in confusion, but they remained silent as Beast Boy slowly walked around the clearing. With every step he took, he could feel it more clearly--a sort of vibration, a humming reverberating up through the earth. He stopped directly in the center of the clearing and transformed back.

“I think...they’re still here,” he said slowly. “They’re just...underground.”

“Underground?” Starfire said.

Raven frowned.“So you turned into an elephant and stomped on their ceiling. Because that’s not conspicuous at all.”

“Eh heh hem,” Beast Boy said as he spun around. “Elephants can hear through their feet, _Raven_.”

“You know what else can hear underground?” she replied. “Tiny mice and mole rats that don’t alert the enemy that we’re standing _right on top of them_.”

Beast Boy just threw out a hand dismissively. “Yeah, right. Like they really heard that.” He shook his head. “I heard some kind of weird humming noise. They’re probably blasting music while they count their money.”

“Um...friends,” Starfire’s voice cut in, once again much more urgently.

Beast Boy and Raven turned simultaneously, eyes following Starfire’s gaze as she pointed to several metal objects rising out of the ground.

Without missing a beat, Raven raised her hands, eyes aglow. A translucent purple dome instantly appeared around them--and not a second too soon.

Lasers bounced viciously off the barrier, coming from every direction. Even though the dome easily deflected the shots, the action began to produce a troubling smokescreen on all sides, completely blocking their visibility.

“You were saying?” Raven sneered, brow furrowed in concentration.

Starfire began to throw shots out in every direction. Each time she was lucky enough to hit something, a small burst of light leaked through the smoke, which was only now beginning to clear. Just enough for Beast Boy to see the lights coming toward them.

“Uh...guys,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “We’ve got company.”

Starfire spun around, now following his line of sight. She began firing once more, this time with slightly more precision.

“They’re gonna be right on top of us,” Raven said, gritting her teeth. “I have to drop the screen. I think it’s--”

But Beast Boy didn’t wait for her to finish the thought. He hadn’t been able to do much on the mission so far. But now, with so many targets in front of him, he could feel the blood thumping in his ears, more loudly than the voice of his friend.

In the next moment, he felt his claws dig into the wet earth, and then into sharp metal and sparking wires as he pounced and ripped off one of the approaching figure’s arms. Having the jaws of a bengal tiger made the the task as simple as snapping a toothpick. Beast Boy pounded forward, barely dodging several strikes from what appeared to be some sort of metal staff. When he was within a foot of the wielder, he leapt directly at them, aiming for the center of the staff they now held up in defense.

But instead of reveling in the satisfaction of watching the staff broken in half at his feet, Beast Boy suddenly found that he was the one of the ground again. His right leg coursed with a numbing electric pain, and every nerve in his body felt distant--misplaced.

With a nearly invisible swipe, the staff and its wielder had spun out of his reach, only to knock him down with an incredibly basic low sweep. On his back, reeling with pain, he looked up at the shadowy figure hovering over him now. Blue and white sparks flew off the cold metal of the staff, which they raised above them, ready to deliver the final blow. Beast Boy closed his eyes tight. It wouldn’t actually be the final blow of course. But it definitely wasn’t going to be pretty either.

Just as he was about to accept that being bedridden for a week wouldn’t be _all_ bad, a blaring noise passed over him, followed by an inhuman scream. He opened his eyes, squinting just enough to see Raven hovering off to his left.

“You can thank me later,” she said, barely glancing at him before firing another bolt of shadow into the fray. “On your right.”

Beast Boy looked up again and, with his good leg, used the same move that had bested him to take out the oncoming attacker. In one swift swipe, the figure was on the ground, falling face first into the mud. With a subtle smirk, Beast Boy quickly transformed again--this time into an alligator--and chomped down on the attacker’s leg.

The figure fell limp, but just as it did, Beast Boy felt the pain coursing through his right leg again--this time radiating all the way up into what would have been his thigh. He slipped back into human form, pulling the knee tight up against his chest. No matter which way he turned it, the pain didn’t disappear.

It was during this moment that he realized just how quiet the scene had become. When he looked back up at the battlefield before him he only saw a handful of enemies left standing--and they were clearly outmatched. In the entire time it had taken him to take down two goons, his friends had managed to wipe out the other thirty or so.

He rested his forehead on his knee and exhaled a long sigh. Yeah. Typical.

“I’ve found something!” Starfire called in the distance.

He lifted his head to see her crouched over one of the bodies on the ground. After a moment she stood back up, brandishing a small object in her hand. Meeting Beast Boy’s eyes, she flew over to him.

“Beast Boy--are you the hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he said, shaking his head. “Just...tired.” Though even as he said it, he could feel the muscles in his leg throbbing in pain.

Raven appeared silently behind Starfire, who looked down at the object again. She sighed. “It is the same symbol as that from the other attacks.”

There was a pause as Beast Boy studied her expression, which was relieved and distraught at the same time. And then he noticed Raven, who was staring straight at him, squinting.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” he said, eyebrow raised.

“I’m not looking at _you_ ,” Raven said, rolling her eyes.

“What?”

“Scoot over,” she said, waving her hand.

Even though it hurt to do so, he did, moving a foot away from the tree trunk he’d propped himself up against.

Raven crouched down next to him and began digging through the soggy leaves. The rain was starting to let up, but in the aftermath of the storm everything was still a muddy mess. After a moment, her efforts revealed an incredibly dim, blinking red light buried under the roots of the large oak tree.

Beast Boy furrowed his brow in confusion “How’d you--?”

“Your ass was blinking,” she said, pressing the dim light, which was apparently also a button. A small translucent panel popped out of the bark of the tree just above it.

“Why were you staring at my ass?” Beast Boy said, unable to resist flashing a snarky smile at her as he said it

Starfire giggled, a hand at her mouth trying to contain herself.

Raven shot her a look and she immediately dropped it. She looked back at the panel that had appeared on the tree. “It looks like a fingerprint scanner,” she said, eyes narrowed.

Without a word, Raven looked back out over the battlefield. She extended a hand out in the direction of one of the fallen androids. In an instant, a dismembered arm flew into her hand. She removed the dirty leather glove from the end of it, revealing a small bit of ultra-realistic latex skin that had managed to stay attached to the hand. Sure enough, the grotesque realism included fingerprints.

She pushed each finger up against the scanner, one by one. When she got to the ring finger, the panel finally blinked green and, after a moment, receded back into the trunk.

For a moment, nothing happened. And in that short span of time, Beast Boy managed to climb to his feet, making a conscious effort to look as uninjured as possible. Of course, when the ground began to shake and he fell flat on his ass again, he was sure he wasn’t convincing anyone.

To their right, a particular pile of leaves rustled a little more than the rest. With a loud click, a perfect circle began to cut itself out in the forest floor. There was just enough moonlight now to illuminate a narrow metal ladder leading down the edge of it.

“Well that was...easy,” Raven said, her tone tinged with even more distrust than usual.

“Who cares?” Beast Boy said, finally making it to his feet for the second time. “Time to kick some secret society android ass motherfu--!” He took one triumphant step forward, and, for the fourth time that night, found himself covered in mud on the forest floor.

Raven looked down at him from where she was standing, specifically eyeing his right leg, which he’d instinctively reached out for after the fall.

“You’re not coming,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“ _What_?”

“Stay here and wait for Robin. Starfire and I will take care of it,” she said, ready to turn around and be on her way.

“But I just got here!” Beast Boy whined. “And I—“ He began to complain, but winced as the numbing pain coursed through his leg again.

Raven shot him a look over her shoulder. A look that told him that arguing with her wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

“Alright, alright,” Beast Boy grumbled. “Staying here.” He threw his arms up in the air in surrender and plopped down on the damp forest floor, leaning back up against the tree.

Starfire gave him a sympathetic smile, but drifted away with Raven as soon as she started to make her way down the passage. And in a moment, he was completely alone again.

“You know,” he yelled at the nothingness, “there’s lots of dangerous animals that don’t even _have_ legs!”

The ironic chirp of crickets in the distance was the only reply he got.

Beast Boy looked around once more at the bodies littering the ground. He felt something akin to frustration bubble up in him. Seeing them all lying so still, he could actually get an idea of how many enemies they’d been up against. And how he was only responsible for taking down _two_ of them. He couldn’t just quit here. If he did, it would be like he’d never even showed up to begin with. Like he’d barely contributed to the match. And that was the last thing he wanted.

Beast Boy eyed the opening in the ground that his two friends had just disappeared into. Then he shot one last glance at the army of androids littering the ground like old rag dolls.

“Raven wants me to play babysitter? Yeah, as if.”

With support from the tree trunk behind him, he pulled himself to his feet one last time. He could manage to stand on his own--and even walk a little if he was careful. But he was kidding himself. As much as he hated to admit it, Raven had been right about the severity of his injury.

He thought for a moment about what he could transform into. Something that wouldn’t require him to use his legs—at least not for movement. Something small and inconspicuous—something not even Raven would notice. Something that wouldn’t have any trouble getting down that tunnel.

One idea quickly came to mind. In a flash, he went from standing still to beating his miniature wings so fast he could barely see them. He felt invisible--which was exactly what he wanted. He hovered over the pit. And as for his usual dilemma, he didn’t have a thing to worry about. After all, humming birds were already green.

The passage underground was dark, damp, and at least three times as cold as the wind chill on the surface.  As Beast Boy fluttered downward, a slight breeze pushed back against him, which admittedly made him start to second guess the whole humming bird thing.

Eventually however, the breeze started to level off, and Beast Boy could make out a faint yellow glow coming into focus beneath him. When he finally reached the source of the light, the breeze dispersed altogether as the tunnel opened into a wide room.

It was roughly what he’d expected. If you’ve see one underground hideout you’ve seen ‘em all.

Old subway tiles lined the wall. Though they’d probably been white at one point, now they were as brown as the rough dirt floor. The room itself was empty, save for a stream of water running along one edge of it. The water originated from somewhere beyond a grate in the eastern wall. It simply passed through, and exited out another grate at the opposite end. In the far left corner, another dim yellow light illuminated the only other point of entry built into the room. The whole scene looked a bit like the indie horror games Beast Boy never had the guts the finish.

He flew across the room toward the light, which revealed a long empty hallway.

Unmarked doors lined each side of the dirty tile, walls. The narrow space reeked of antiseptic and decaying wood. He quickly made his way down the hall, which fortunately had few twists and turns. Smaller hallways occasionally branched off of the main one, but they only led to clusters of doors. Doors that were all either locked or held nothing but some unremarkable chairs and tables inside them.

Whoever had designed this place had clearly been playing too many video games.

As he went deeper however, the atmosphere began to change slightly. The tiles lining the hallway gradually looked whiter, cleaner, _newer_ \--as if the hall had only recently been constructed. Down here, instead of just blank doors and empty rooms, signs began to pop up next to the door handles. They ranged in description from things like ‘JANITOR’ and ‘STORAGE’’ to things like ‘NEUROEPIGENETICS’ and ‘CRYOCONSERVATION’. Beast Boy was just beginning to wonder what the last two could possibly mean when he heard the faintest echoes of voices bouncing around an upcoming corner. And at least two of them were instantly recognizable.

He darted forward as quickly and as silently as his wings would carry him. It wasn’t long before the familiar sounds of Starfire’s energy bolts and Raven’s chanting joined the mix. When he turned a corner at the end of the hallway, the scene came into full view before him.  

The room, or rather warehouse, was incredibly large, the decor just as plain and white as the route to get there. But unlike the other rooms he’d seen on his way over, this one wasn’t empty. Stacks upon stacks of large wooden crates and cardboard boxes lined the walls and sat in groups all over the floor. The ceiling reached incredible heights--it had to be at least fifty feet tall—and there were several stacks of crates that reached all the way to the top. It resembled the backlot of a Home Depot, that is, if the mulch and flowers had been replaced with suspicious, unmarked boxes.

The boxes aside, the room was wide open, so it wasn’t hard to get a good look at the fight going on. Beast Boy swallowed hard.

On the floor, there were already several people down. They looked just like the androids--black jumpsuits and masks that showed only their eyes. But none of them were sparking or twitching like broken machinery. Instead, they were writhing on the floor in pain--still alive of course. But it was the _alive_ part that changed things.

In the ceiling corner diagonal to him, Beast Boy watched as Raven raised her hands, gritting her teeth as she heaved a forklift into the air and shot it toward a group of people, their weapons aimed directly at her. There was a loud crash, followed by a stream of red bullets flying from the cloudy aftermath of the wreckage. Raven dodged each one of them with an expert precision.

On the other side of the room, Starfire brutally yelled at one of goons in Tamaranian. She whipped around, blasting another small group of them with a beam of green light from her left hand. With her right, she cut down one of the ceiling beams, which subsequently crashed down on top of another few.

But despite their efforts, there were just too many of them to handle all at once. And the extras didn’t seem particularly interested in fighting back. They were trying to run away--and they were trying to take something with them.

In the corner the farthest away from the rest of the fighting, Beast Boy watched about ten or fifteen individuals scramble to transfer a particular set of crates into a white van. The engine was already running, the driver ready to take off at any moment.

Raven and Starfire were more than qualified to handle anything their opponents were dishing out. But they were outnumbered--and now they were stuck holding off the distraction.

Beast Boy felt his blood pumping again. This was his chance. Er...second chance. To not just be the distraction or the plan B, but to take center stage. And once again, it sparked something in him that he didn’t quite know how to control.

So he didn’t try to control it.

Any worry he had about Raven catching him immediately vanished. He didn’t care about being inconspicuous. He _wanted_ to be seen. And a two ton rhinoceros was definitely more visible than a humming bird.

He hit the ground running, savoring the crack of the tile beneath his legs as he ran. The adrenaline coursing through his veins rendered all of the pain it caused him irrelevant. The ground shook, and instantly he could feel that all eyes were on him, even though he was too focused on the target in front of him to see them. He charged, head lowered, horn pointed directly at the group behind the truck, ready to—

“BEAST BOY!”

He instantly skidded to a stop. But he’d put the brakes on a second too late.

The criminals ducked out of the way, spared by his split second of hesitation. The driver revved the engine, Raven’s furious words still echoing off the walls.

They were the last thing he heard before he smashed head first into the wall.

When he opened his eyes, he felt his knees going weak underneath him. The only thing holding him upright was his horn, which was firmly pinned through the tile, behind the plaster of the wall. Pain shot through his leg again, and with a yank to free himself, he fell over, his thick skin scraping against the cold shards of broken tile that littered the floor.

Reverting back to his human form was less a choice than it was an obligation. Again, Beast Boy pulled himself up against the wall for support. He looked down at his bloodied palms, felt the taste of blood on his lips. And those were just the new additions to the injuries he’d already sustained.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself, rubbing a hand across his temple. More blood.

He closed his eyes tight. But the room was bright enough that, even so, he noticed the instant a large shadow fell over him. He opened his eyes, squinting against the lights in the distance. Looming over him was the entire group of individuals he had pinned as easy targets only a moment before.

“Uh...hey there,” he said, with a faltering half smile. “Nice outfits. They new?”

Suddenly, one of the figures stepped forward out of the group. In their hand they held a long metal staff. They gave it a shake and blue sparks began to fire off the end of it.

“Oh. Right,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “That.”

This time he didn’t try and fight it.

Surprisingly, knowing what was coming actually just made things worse. This time he wasn’t caught off guard. And with no distractions, every single brain cell was free to experience the electrifying punch that landed smack in the middle of his chest.

“AHHHHH!!” he yelled so loudly he could barely hear himself think. His eyes shut tight again, this time automatically, and he could feel his entire body curling in on itself. The only control he had left was his ability to scream, and even that felt alien. Like it wasn’t really his voice he was hearing.

He tried to open his eyes, but the entire world was fading into a black static screen. The static itself became more and more muted, like even the TV was starting to lose power. His stomach wretched, and his breathing quickened. But no matter how many breaths he took it was never enough.

Not far off in the distance he heard a loud, muffled growl, followed by the crashing of crates in every direction surrounding him.

The roar of a truck engine and skidding tires rang in his ears, then grew more and more distant.

“Raven!” A second voice yelled, a little farther off. “They are escap—“

Another growl. A voice spitting words in a language Beast Boy didn’t understand. More explosions. The ping of stray bullets reflecting off the walls.

Beast Boy dared to try and open his eyes one more time. Everything was still hazy, but he could make out the shapes and colors before him. He inhaled, finding that his breathing was already beginning to even out. His muscles ached. His chest ached. Every inch of his body hurt like hell.

But he was...fine. Relatively speaking. He was a superhero after all. He’d just gotten his ass handed to him. Again.  

But Raven didn’t know that.

The instant the thought occurred to him, he froze--and not just because of the literal paralysis.

Raven didn’t _know_ he was perfectly conscious.

Beast Boy had dedicated countless hours--entire _years_ of his life--to the art of pulling off the perfect prank. He’d gotten everyone at least one point or another over the years. Even _Silkie_. But pranking Raven had always been like trying to solve a puzzle where none of the pieces fit together. It was impossible. He’d tried everything. Or so he’d thought.

He shut his eyes tight again, this time biting the inside of his lip to keep himself from blowing his cover. If he could get away with _this,_ he could get away with _anything_.

In a matter of moments, the noises began to fade. The last shots were fired, followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor. And then footsteps that stopped right up next to the side of his face. Someone pausing to lean down.

“Beast Boy, get up,” Raven said sternly, her voice close to his ear. So close he could nearly feel her breath on his face.

Instead of responding though, he continued to lie there, focusing every bit of willpower he had on holding his breath and keeping as still as humanly possible.

Needless to say, doing so became more difficult when he felt two icy fingers press up against the side of his neck. The minute Raven’s skin made contact with his own, he felt a shiver run down his spine. For a brief moment it occurred to him how foreign her touch was. Despite have known each other for so many years now, they rarely ever made physical contact. The only exception was accidentally kicking each other under the table at dinner or smashing into each other in a fight. Raven wasn’t exactly the kind of person you casually brushed up against in the hallway or high-fived after wrapping up a mission. It was a small thing, but in that moment, it felt huge.

“Oh come on,” she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to him. “Look, I already said I don’t have time for your stupid jokes.”

Beast Boy continued to hold his breath, dually to keep himself from breaking character and to keep himself from snickering.

And then she grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and started shaking. Lightly at first, then a little more abruptly. That was something he hadn’t anticipated at _all_ \--but at the very least the motion was enough to obscure the rise and fall of his chest as he snuck in a quick breath. Once she set him down on his back again, he relaxed his muscles completely, picturing the image of a rag doll and trying his best to mimic it.

Raven paused. She pulled away for a minute. There was a soft whistle as she breathed in sharply through her teeth.

“Shit,” she whispered, the syllable uttered harsh and quick. It gave Beast Boy pause for a moment.

“ _Shit_ ,” she repeated, her voice shaking a little. There was a distinct lack of apathy in her tone as she said it. For a split second it almost sounded like she was...concerned. Actually _concerned_.

And suddenly Beast Boy was too.

This had been a bad idea.

A _very_ bad idea.

But before he could pretend to ‘wake up’ and avoid fucking up the situation any more than he already had, Raven picked him up. Not with magic. She actually _picked him up_ full on princess style. Of course, Raven was naturally stronger than the average person, despite mainly relying on magic when it came to fighting. Just another tiny detail about her that suddenly felt very significant.

Beast Boy felt himself freeze up again--but this time it wasn’t an act. What exactly was going on here? And why did he feel so...weird about it?

A second later they were moving.

Beast Boy’s heart began to pound. If he’d been able to pick up on Raven’s scent from over a mile a way, he could _definitely_ smell it now. It was on her clothes and on her skin--both of which he was pressed directly up against. Suddenly two fingers on his neck seemed like nothing. He took a cautious breath in through his nose, not having really decided whether it would be best to keep playing along for now or blow the whole thing.

But the idea of there even being an option didn’t last long, because in the next instant, the unimaginable happened.

He sneezed.

Raven skidded to a stop immediately. When she looked down, she locked eyes with a very conscious, very much alive, very much _panicking_ Beast Boy.

There was only one road out now--and it was the one he least wanted to take.

Playing along with his original joke. His shitty, poorly thought out _joke_.

If he could play it off as much, maybe he’d be able to slide out of this. Raven would roll her eyes and drop him on the ground. And it would be like it never even happened.

He threw a hand over his forehead. “The...light...” he choked dramatically. “Closer to the light.” He outstretched his other hand toward the sky—which was suddenly moving upward with lightning speed...as he fell flat on his back.

He’d expected as much. What he didn’t expect was the absence of a snarky remark from the girl who’d just dropped him.

Just then, he noticed Starfire finally making her way over to them. She was panting, sweating, completely out of breath. “I tried to follow them but--” She gasped, hands flying up to either side of her face. “Is everything the alright?” she asked, looking down at Beast Boy on the ground.

There was a pause.

“Yeah. Everything’s fine,” Raven said, a hint of hostility in her voice. Without another word, she turned sharp on her heel and began to walk back the way they had come.  

Watching her go, Starfire extended a hand out to Beast Boy, helping him up. “What is wrong with friend Raven?”

“Pfft,” he said, trying his hardest to laugh it off. “Nothing’s wrong with her. She just doesn’t know how to take a joke.” But even as he said the words, he knew that what he’d done had been more than just a joke. It had teetered on a pretty dangerous line. Maybe even crossed it.

Starfire looked puzzled. “How can a joke be taken if it is merely a string of sounds?” she asked.

“I—it’s not important,” Beast Boy said, his mind elsewhere.

The trip back was slow and tiring. Beast Boy insisted that he could walk on his own for all of two minutes before letting Starfire carry him the rest of the way. By the time they made it back to the top of the tunnel they’d entered through, it felt like the battle they’d just fought took place a week ago. Maybe more. Time seemed to move more slowly--maybe because Beast Boy was preoccupied, mentally slapping himself every passing second.

When they reached the clearing, Raven was sitting criss cross in the air at the opposite end, meditating.

“I suppose we will have to tell Robin that we have failed,” Starfire said sadly, helping Beast Boy sit up against a nearby tree.

“Eh, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Beast Boy said, trying desperately to sound uninterested and unaffected. “I figure we’ve got some time to make up a convincing story before he gets here.”

But just as Beast Boy closed his mouth, a flash of bright yellow headlights cut through the trees, rushing toward them. A vehicle—unmistakably Robin’s motorcycle—skidded to a halt just at the edge of the clearing. The figure riding it lifted off his helmet and gave his short dark hair a ruffle before swinging off the bike and walking toward them.

“Finally! Do you know how long it took me to find you all without any tracking devices?” he said, panting. “Cyborg’s been going nuts trying to--” Then he paused and took a moment to look around more closely at the scene. First he looked over at Raven in the corner, her back to the rest of the group. Then he glanced down at Beast Boy, limply propped up against the tree and covered in blood. Finally he looked at Starfire, who had never learned how to keep a particularly convincing poker face.

Robin’s own facial expression shifted dramatically, his tone dropping. “What. _Happened_.”

“I—we—there was—” Beast Boy fumbled, pointing at himself, then Raven, then at the hole to his left.

“Beast Boy happened,” Raven interjected, harshly, her back still turned to them.

“Beast Boy?” Robin repeated, addressing him directly.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, avoiding eye contact.

Robin threw him a skeptical look.

“He was hurt,” Raven said, finally turning around. “So I told him to stay behind—and did he? No. Of course not. He came running after us trying to ‘help’,” she scoffed, making air quotes as she said it. “Queue Mr. Genetic Mistake rushing in with a broken leg and getting knocked out, making a _joke_ out of it, and buying the idiots we were chasing just enough time to escape.”

Robin turned back to looked at him, disappointed.

“She forgot the part where _I_ was the one who figured out where they were hiding,” he said defiantly, pointing at himself. His caution momentarily replaced by an edge of defensiveness.

“Yeah,” Raven sneered. “By ringing the doorbell.”

“At least it helped us find the entrance!”

“An entrance they’re definitely going to close off or relocate because now we know where it _is_.”

Robin sighed a long, deep sigh. “Alright. That’s enough.” He rubbed his temples, eyes shut. “We can’t do anything about it now except hope to do better next time. Raven, help him out, would you?” he said, nodding toward Beast Boy. “Star, there’s some stuff I wanna ask you about the people you fought.”

Before she turned her back on him, Starfire shot Beast Boy one last sympathetic look. Though this one felt less like a ‘I feel for you,’ look, and more like a ‘glad it’s not me’ look.

Beast Boy looked down at the ground. He couldn’t risk meeting Raven’s eyes.

She approached him slowly, also avoiding looking directly at him. She crouched down next to him, silently placing her hands over his injured leg. A cloud of energy began to swirl above it, and the pain started to subside slowly but steadily.

Beast Boy snagged a quick glance at her face, trying to read her expression. She didn’t budge, as if healing him took every ounce of her concentration. He knew it didn’t.

For the third time that night, he felt somehow...uncomfortable with their close proximity. The silence only made things worse. So, without thinking, he tried to break it the only way he knew how.

“You’re just mad ‘cause _I finally got you_ ,” he said, trying to manage a playful smile. He imagined that the one he mustered up wasn’t completely convincing.

Suddenly Raven stopped. The light faded from her hands. She stood up and looked down at him, this time dead in the eye.

“Not everything is a joke, Beast Boy,” she said sternly. “And one day, you’re gonna learn that the hard way.”

Beast Boy just sat there for a moment, processing what she had said. He tried to think of a response--some offhand one-liner that would lighten the mood. Those were his speciality. But he was drawing a blank.

“Alright you guys, let’s head home,” Robin called from the distance. “We’ll figure out what to do next tomorrow.”

Raven remained silent for another moment. She continued to looked down at Beast Boy, then she looked off to the side. It was subtle, but Beast Boy thought he heard her whisper something to herself under her breath.

She turned her back on him and walked away.

He crawled back to his feet on his own.

No one turned back to help him up.


	3. The Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I have returned after 5 months to finish what I've started because I love this fic too much to abandon it. Expect updates to be much more regular. And this time I mean it!

  


**Listen to the podfic version[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18090017/chapters/47950420)!**

 

4:23 a.m.

The red numbers on his alarm clock seemed to stare back at Beast Boy with an unflinching glare. Like an animal that mocked him simply by existing. Beyond the window, a yellow glow seeped through the tightly drawn blinds. With a grunt, he rubbed his eyes and flipped over face first onto his pillow. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness hours ago.

By all accounts, he was _exhausted_. Every muscle in his body ached. His head continued to pound like a battering ram against a stone wall hours after the fight was over. The only thing worse than being electrocuted (three times) was the grueling pain the shocks had left in their wake. By now, he’d lost count of how much Advil he’d taken. It was probably safe to say ‘too much’. 

But the burning in his muscles and the city lights creeping in through his window weren’t what kept him awake. Not really. 

The problem was that, every time he _did_ skirt the edge of sleep, it started all over again.

Goosebumps prickled on his arms at the mere thought of it. The cold tile on his skin. The muffled voices of his friends in the distance, even more distorted in his memory. When he closed his eyes, he saw the same darkness he’d retreated to only hours before. Even now he found himself instinctively holding his breath.

The culprits had escaped, and he knew it had been (at least partially) his fault. He was sure Robin was disappointed in him. Maybe even annoyed. But that hadn’t been his biggest mistake of the night. Not by a long shot. 

Beast Boy flipped over again, unable to lie still as the scene played before him. He shut his eyes tighter, rubbing his hands over his face. But the increasing darkness only made things more real. Even lying completely still, he easily felt the ghostly traces of someone’s fingers on his neck. He threw the sheets back from around his face. They suddenly felt like spiders crawling all over him. 

But above all, he couldn’t tune out her voice, echoing in his ears. 

‘ _Not everything is a joke. And one day you’re gonna learn that the hard way._ ’

Beast Boy flinched. He rolled over. Pulled the sheets up again, and turned the clock the other direction. But it was no use. 

He bit his lip, staring at the ceiling. 

He didn’t think everything was a joke. Of course he didn’t. 

He just _acted_ like it sometimes.

He bit his lip harder, exhaling a deep, wavering sigh. 

_Was there a difference?_

Flooded with shame, he tried his best to disappear. And somehow, pulling the sheets up all the way over his head was oddly convincing. He closed  his eyes once more, now that he felt he’d finally escaped from the reality of what he’d done--if only for the night. Under the sheets it was warm and stuffy--just enough so to lull him into a still, dreamless sleep. 

 

***  


“Rise and shine!” 

Cyborg’s voice echoed under the metal door, traveling in waves. 

Beast Boy’s eyes flew open as he bolted upright in bed. At the other end of the room, a bright white light glowed behind the blackout curtains.

“It’s waffle time, baby!” The voice rang out again, this time bouncing off the walls as it carried toward the kitchen.

Beast Boy rubbed his eyes, still finding it difficult to open them completely. When he finally did, he saw that the clock read 10:34 a.m.

With a groan, he ran his hands over his face once more. The inside of his head spun like a broken rattle, clamoring with leftover thoughts and emotions he couldn’t parse out. All in all, he felt regrettably similar to the fateful morning he’d discovered he was the definition of a lightweight. 

With all of the energy he could muster, he rolled out of bed and rummaged the floor to find a stray T-shirt to throw on. As he pulled the shirt over his head however, one of the puzzle pieces unveiled itself. His arm ached. _Bad_. And then he remembered why. 

The door clicked open as he exited his room, eyes barely open. A hand instinctively flew to his face to shield his eyes from the piercing light that flooded in through the main window down the hall. He trudged into the kitchen, each step more taxing than the last. When he finally made it to the threshold, he caught a glimpse of a bedheaded Robin manning the waffle iron and Cyborg pouring himself a glass of orange juice. At the far end of the room, in her usual spot, Raven sat reading a book, a cup of tea hovering beside her. The sight of her made him flinch for a moment, as images of last night came rushing back to him. He tried, and failed, to ignore them.

The only person missing from the room was Starfire. Beast Boy blinked hard, rubbing his temple at the realization. Starfire missing on a Sunday morning could only mean one thing.

“ALLRRRRRIIIGHT,” Cyborg bellowed, setting his glass down on the coffee table with an enthusiastic thud. In his other hand, he waved around a few sheets of paper. “Who’s ready to DUNGEON SOME DRAGONS?” he hollered, like he was orchestrating a high school pep rally. When no one responded, he looked over expectantly at Raven.

“Uh...go team?” she said, in an equally unenthusiastic tone. 

“Okay, I _know_ you’re into this shit deep Rae, don’t even try it,” he said with a half smile. “The rest of y’all better’ve actually updated your character sheets this time,” he said with a smirk, now looking at Beast Boy.

Beast Boy froze, a lump in his throat. Not because of Cyborg’s joking glare, but because he locked eyes with Raven, who had also now turned to look at him. There wasn’t anything particularly threatening about her gaze in that moment, but Beast Boy still found it hard to meet. 

“I, uh...,” he squirmed, trying very hard to look at Cyborg and _only_ Cyborg as he said it. When that didn’t work he just stared at the ground. “I--I’ll be right back.” With a sheepish grin, he spun on his heels and retreated directly back the way he’d come. 

With the door to his room shut firmly behind him, Beast Boy closed his eyes, hoping it would keep the room from spinning any more than it already was. But he was starting to think that the sleep deprivation wasn’t the only reason he suddenly felt nauseous. He peeled himself off the back of the door and slunk into the chair at his desk, shaking his head. He just needed to set his mind straight. 

Red and green lights flashed in the cracks between his fingers as he booted up his computer, and the whirl of a fan began to take up some of the deafening silence. When the lights were replaced with a single steady glow he opened his eyes fully, fought the urge to slap himself, and opened several documents on the desktop. 

First he scanned over his character sheet, updating the stats he already knew how to calculate. His current character was a half-elf bard named Tangus. You could have snapped him like a toothpick, but the guy was _oozing_ with charisma, and as far as Beast Boy was concerned, that was what really mattered.The best kind of characters were the ones who could talk their way into or out of anything. Characters that were smooth and funny--charming, romantic, and likable. Characters who always knew just what to say. 

He paused, then frowned at the thought. Maybe he was compensating for something.

Shaking his head, Beast Boy turned to one of the many other windows he’d pulled up--a spell database he referred to often. He was busy mulling around the idea of picking up another healing spell when he was suddenly interrupted by the chime of a notification from his computer. 

He figured it had to be one of his friends yelling at him to hurry up. But when he searched around for the origin of sound, he found no new messages on discord or any of the other messaging apps he frequented. What he did find, buried under three layers of abandoned tabs was a sign of life radiating from his Facebook notification bar. Beast Boy narrowed his eyes at it. Facebook was buried that far back for a reason. After all, it was more of a publicity page than anything else. He didn’t have much of an alter ego, so keeping up a personal one was kind of a moot point.  

He had two new friend requests. 

One of them he recognized right away. It was the friend request he’d gotten from Cold Stone two months prior that he’d never accepted just on principle. He sighed, almost a little disappointed. 

But the second one--the more recent one-- _did_ catch his eye. 

It also looked very much like spam. The man in the profile picture looked a little too well put together. Almost like a stock photo. He had olive skin and dark hair that was slicked back cinematically. He brandished a full, welcoming smile. Like a dentist trying to promote himself and advertise his services at the same time. 

Next to it Beast Boy read the name ‘Nicholas Galtry’.

He sat back in his chair. 

For a reason he couldn’t place, the name felt...familiar. As if he’d encountered it once in a dream or in a movie he’d watched a long time ago. 

He looked closer, clicking on the picture. Whoever it was, they had no mutual friends between them, and when he tried to investigate the man’s profile further, he only found one more hazy picture very similar to the first. 

Once more, Beast Boy leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen. A weird friend request wasn’t really that much to worry about—usually. But something about the man’s face sat wrong with Beast Boy.

“Beast Boy? You ready?” Robin’s voice echoed down the hall.

“Uh...Yeah, coming!” he yelled back, quickly closing the tab and toggling back to his character sheet and clicking print. He swiped the papers out of the printer and ran back down the hallway into the main room.

Everyone was sitting in their claimed spots around the table—again, everyone except Starfire. Robin was just now making his way to the table with some pancakes. From the couch, Raven watched intently as Cyborg focused every ounce of his attention on the dice tower he was building. 

No later than the second it came crashing down, Starfire burst into the room.

“Hello, friends!” she exclaimed, flying over to her spot at the head of the table. “I’m sorry I am late. But during my preparations for our game of dragons in dungeons I encountered the most interesting of objects.”

Everyone turned their attention to her--even Beast Boy, who hadn’t yet made it to the other side of the room. It was hard to not stop and stare at the thick ivory envelope she brandished above her head. In the center of it was a bright red wax stamp, like something plucked from a period drama.

“What is it?” Robin and Cyborg said in unison.

Starfire lowered the envelope and looked down at it, confusion in her face. “I am not sure. While I was taking the silkie out for a walk this morning, I noticed someone approaching our neglected box of postage,” she continued. “The stranger left it within and quickly vanished.”

Robin pouted, extending out a hand. “Mind if I take a look?”

With a nod, Starfire handed it over to him.  

He studied it for a moment, looking the envelope over back to front. Then he merely shrugged, handing it back to her. “I dunno. Looks like they probably had the wrong address.”

“We live in a giant T,” Cyborg said. “How do you mess something like that up?”

“Cyborg makes the good point,” Starfire said, taking the envelope back and holding it up to the light. She squinted at it as if doing so might reveal its true purpose. “I do not recognize any of these names. If they are names.” She squinted even harder. 

“Lemme see that,” Cyborg said, extending out a hand. After reading the front of the envelope for himself, his face morphed from confusion to pure amusement. “Damn,” he laughed under his breath. “I feel bad for whoever this was supposed to go to. What a fucking name,” he said, handing the letter to Raven as it naturally began to make its rounds. 

Once in her possession, Raven flipped the letter over in her hand, running her finger over the intricate seal on the back. She stared at it for a moment, eyes narrowed. Though that didn’t betray much, considering that her default expression always lingered somewhere between disinterest and disapproval.

Beast Boy found that in those few short moments he had inched his way decidedly into the room, as if drawn in by a magnetic force. He didn’t even realize that he had crept up behind her and had started to even lean forward to try and catch a glimpse over her shoulder until, as if on cue, she yanked it away and held it just out of his reach.

“Hey, lemme--” Beast Boy began to protest.

Raven narrowed her eyes again without saying anything, looking down at the envelope again. 

A sly smile crept onto Beast Boy’s face. For a moment, he forgot why he had ever been so hesitant to enter the room. The scene felt so familiar. 

In the span of a second, the letter was in his talons, Raven muttering a curse under her breath. When his feet hit the kitchen floor, Beast Boy had to stifle a snicker. He turned just in time to catch Raven shooting him her middle finger. And oddly enough, he breathed a sigh of relief at the gesture.

The relief didn’t last long.  

The moment Beast Boy flipped the letter over to its front, he froze. His eyes scanned over it a second time--a third and fourth. But the words on the front didn’t change. His heart rate did.  

“You okay, man?” Cyborg called to him over his shoulder, surrounded by the curious gaze of the rest of his friends. 

Beast Boy quickly whipped around, dropping the letter in front of him and hastily picking it back up, pressing it to his chest. “Fine! I’m...fine.”

Starfire gaped. “Do you perhaps know who it is for?”

“No--I...I just--” He stammered. But before he knew it, Starfire was hovering over him, eyes transfixed on the envelope.

“I must ask,” she continued, completely disregarding his answer. “What is a ‘Gar’, and what may be the purpose of cultivating them in a field?”

“It’s just a name, Star,” Robin interjected. 

“A terrible one,” Raven said, to no one in particular.

But to Beast Boy, the statement had felt unnervingly personal.

“Gar...field?” Starfire repeated again, testing the two sounds together as one.

Beast Boy stood silent, hoping his silence would go unnoticed. 

It didn’t.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cyborg asked again, leaning over and raising an eyebrow at him.  

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a...moment,” Beast Boy said, forcing a laugh. Doing so made his stomach turn. “Guess my brain tripped the off switch for a sec,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“We’ll just drop it in the junk drawer for now,” Robin said, waving his hand dismissively and beckoning the two back over to the table. 

“Yeah...” Beast Boy said again, placing the letter face down in the top drawer and sliding it firmly shut. 

 

***

 

As much as Beast Boy had hoped it would, the pit in his stomach didn’t go away.

During training that afternoon, he had literally transformed into a fish out of water...twice. After lunch, he had consistently lost to Cyborg and Robin in Mario Kart, Smash, and every other game on the shelf. His two friends had even managed to bully _Raven_ into playing, and losing to the worst player in the household (twice) had ultimately sealed his fate. In frustration, he’d resorted to watching the third season of The Office for the seventh time from the safety of his room. When that didn’t work, he switched to Vines. So many Vines. Too many Vines. And yet somehow not enough. Later that night, as he’d shuffled some tofu in a pan on the stove, he caught himself glancing over at the corner drawer every few minutes. Unable to shake the feeling of thick cardstock in this hand, he mindlessly dumped a fistful of soaking wet soy squares into the pan before him, showering himself with droplets of hot oil. 

As he yelled out in surprise, there was a laugh from the other end of the room as Cyborg made a joke about the bathroom mirror Beast Boy had clumsily knocked over a few days ago.

“Seven years is a long time, man,” Cyborg laughed.

Beast Boy frowned. For once, he would have gladly attributed today’s mishaps to something as simple as bad luck. 

In the darkness, the thoughts only got worse. Now that he’d had ample time to ruminate on who the letter had been addressed to, he shifted his focus to what the letter itself could actually have to say. Every thought that passed through his mind made him shiver, but he couldn’t bring himself to fight it. So he kept them all in equal circulation with a sort of morbid, torturing fixation. 

Finally, he leaned over and grabbed the clock off his nightstand. 

3:23 am. 

He shoved it back into place and stared at the blank ceiling above him. Then he kicked off the covers and got out of bed.

Opening the huge metal door to his bedroom silently was virtually impossible, but Beast Boy managed to get through with just one shrill squeak. Before him, the hallway was completely dark and still. He pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight, carefully navigating the short walk to the kitchen. In the main living area moonlight illuminated the hollow room with a lifeless glow.

Pausing between every step, Beast Boy made his way over to the fateful drawer and reached out a hand to open it. He bit his lip as he weighed the pros and cons of what he was about to do. A small voice in the back of his head screamed out, telling him to go back while he still could. This voice of course didn’t have any more of an idea of what the envelope contained than he did. But it at least had the sense to know that opening anything address to...well, Garfield...was asking for trouble. 

But while his mind hadn’t yet finished arguing with itself, his body had already made up its mind. One minute his hand was on the drawer handle and the next it wasn’t. One minute his hand had been empty. The next, he found himself rubbing his thumb against the wax seal over and over, as if to test its reality. 

He took a deep break and closed his eyes. This time he moved his thumb under the seal instead of over it, the sound of paper ripping ever so gently under...

“Beast Boy!”

Beast Boy’s gaze shot up as he instinctively clenched the letter tighter. Two glowing green eyes met his own from the other side of the room. He froze instantly. 

The shadowy figure blinked several times before, with a short gust of wind, it came to a dramatic halt a foot from his face. Decked out in a robe, face smeared with some sort of expensive looking cream, and her hair tied up in a messy bun, Starfire stared down at him disapprovingly

“I was--I’m just--” Beast Boy fumbled.

“Just what?” She whisper-screamed, yanking the envelope out of his hand and wagging it around in the air. “Opening the mail that is not belonging to you is illegal!” 

Beast Boy threw his hands in the air and took a step back. “I know, I know. I’m...sorry.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Starfire said, shaking her head. 

“Sorry...I just...I didn’t think anyone else was awake,” Beast Boy replied, realizing that the response didn’t exactly prove him any more innocent. He looked Starfire up and down again, trying to gauge how likely it was that she would tell Robin about this. But it was hard to take the disappointment in her face seriously behind all of the beauty products and the towel wrapped around her head. “What are you doing in the kitchen at 3:30 in the morning anyway?” he asked in a desperate attempt to change the conversation.

“I am here to obtain a smoothie before I partake in my morning routine of the blogilates,” Starfire said, arms crossed. She shot him a suspicious look—like the kind that seemed permanently glued to Raven’s face—but it was too comical to take seriously. “I would ask you the same question, but it would seem you have already demonstrated the answer.”

Beast Boy sighed and looked at the floor. He couldn’t meet Starfire’s eyes. “Sorry. I know this looks bad. I just...I really didn’t wanna have to…”

“Have to what?” Starfire questioned.

Beast Boy hesitated. He took a deep breath and managed to get it out in one sentence. “I didn’t wanna have to tell anyone.” He quickly shot her a knowing look, then glanced back off to the side again. 

Starfire was silent for a moment.

Even though he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, Beast Boy knew she was staring at him. After a moment her shoulders fell slack. Her jaw dropped, both hands flying to her mouth. She lowered them slowly just enough to speak and, after a minute, whispered, “Do not tell me... _you_ are the Gar of Fields?”

An embarrassed half-smile crept onto Beast Boy’s face. “Kind of. I mean...I guess I am...or was. At least at one point in my life.”

There was a pause. And then Starfire’s expression did a complete 180. She gasped again, but this time with pure amazement--and Beast Boy wasn’t sure he liked this reaction any better.

“Oh, wonderful!” Starfire beamed, her eyes aglow in an entirely different light. 

“It...is?” Beast Boy said, feeling a pit forming in his stomach again.

“Of course!” Starfire continued. “It must be that someone from your past is trying to contact you and inquire as to your well being,” she mused, a finger at her lips. “Perhaps it is a relative who wishes to hear of all of your daring heroic exploits? Or a childhood friend who has searched far and wide for you so that they may disclose their true feelings for you! Or a long lost sibling who yearns to be reunited with the brother they’ve never known?”

“Uh...I don’t know about all that,” Beast Boy said uneasily, still reeling from the emotional whiplash of their short conversation.

“Nonsense,” Starfire said, her voice growing more and more above a whisper with every word. She grabbed his arm with her free hand and began to pull. “Come! We must rouse  everyone and tell them of the news!”

“Star, no, hold up a sec,” Beast Boy said, grabbing at his wrist, heels dug into the floor. “You don’t understand. You can’t tell _anyone_.”

Starfire came to an abrupt halt. She released his arm from her grip, and turned to look at Beast Boy, her brow now wrinkled in confusion. “What do you mean?” 

He hesitated, glancing at the envelope in her hand once more. Beast Boy had never been a very good liar. And even if he were, it was impossible to lie to Starfire. So instead, he took a deep breath and told the truth without telling all of it. “Because… it’s embarrassing and weird,” he said. “I never really liked it.” At these words, his mind immediately jumped to the next logical thought. “Besides, if Raven or Cyborg ever found out they’d never let me live it down.”

“Hmmm,” Starfire hummed, tapping a finger on her cheek again. “Perhaps. But I still think it is a most interesting name and not embarrassing at all,” she smiled. “We already have two friends named after birds. Raven being one of them. My own name might even be considered strange. Raven has already observed that it somewhat resembles that of the equestrian cartoon characters she denies her admiration for.”

“Well, I guess the association with mine isn’t much better,” Beast Boy said, still anxious, but slightly relieved by the amusing predictability of his friend.

“What do you mean?” Starfire asked, puzzled.

“Well...Garfield isn’t really a popular name. The only thing people probably think of when they think of ‘Garfield’ is Garfield the cat. He’s like...a comic strip character or whatever.”

Starfire’s eyes lit up—literally.

“You share the name of a famous fictional feline?!” She exclaimed. “Oh, that is even better than the horses! I do not know how that could possibly be viewed as a negative. ”

Beast Boy didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. He just stared at the letter in Starfire’s hand.

With a sigh and a smile, Starfire gently placed a hand on his shoulder, handing him the letter. “Have not the worry, friend. I will keep it the most deepest of secrets if that is what you wish,” she said solemnly.

Beast Boy sighed and looked up at her. “Thanks, Star.”

Starfire stood there only a moment more before she quickly grabbed two granola bars off the counter and turned to make her exit. “Well, I’ll leave you alone then,” she smiled. “I do not wish to intrude upon your communications via the mail of snail.”

Beast Boy managed a weak half-smile back which she matched just before she turned to grab a protein shake and head down the hallway.

Once Starfire was out of sight and well on her way to her destination, Beast Boy made a beeline back to his own room, letter in hand. Just as carefully as he had made his initial exit, he closed the door behind him with only the smallest of screeches. Although he felt a bit silly doing so, he locked the door behind him for good measure.

He turned on the small lamp next to his bed and, very aware of how out of it he was, plopped down on the center of the mattress. The lamp illuminated a few lines of elegant cursive lettering adorning the front of the envelope, the individual letters shining with a subtle reflective glint.

_‘Garfield Mark Logan_ ’

He flipped the envelope over and after a moment of hesitation, ripped the wax seal off as fast as he could, like a band aid. The thick paper inside was folded with geometric precision, and unfurled itself in an almost mechanical fashion. The script inside was written just as carefully—by hand he could tell. With a deep breath, he tried to relax as best he could, and he began to read:

 

Dear Garfield,

 

I know that the arrival of this letter must be wholly unexpected and draw many questions to your mind. You likely do not remember me, as we were only acquainted for a short time when you were very young. Ideally, the information I hope to relay to you now would have been communicated some 3 years ago, on the advent of your eighteenth birthday. However, I will admit that it took longer than anticipated to contact you. 

Though I may be a stranger to you, I am not so to the Logan family. And I feel that it is time you were made aware of several family matters which presently concern you. I know that the loss of your parents resulted in the loss of the remainder of your blood relatives. But I hope that you may entertain the idea that family runs deeper than blood. I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you very soon.

 

Sincerely, 

your friend,

Dr. Nicholas Galtry

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Unpacking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am super excited to finally be able to post the next chapter of this crazy project. This chapter was a bit long which was why it took me a while to polish it up. Enjoy!

  


**Listen to the podfic version[here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18090017/chapters/49878728)!**

 

Nicholas Galtry’s profile picture wasn’t any more convincing the second time Beast Boy saw it. Or the third, fourth, or fifth. But the letter that had sat next to his keyboard for the past two days kept him from closing the tab.  

As far as Beast Boy could tell, the note had been written by hand. The elegant, varying curves of the letters suggested as much. Handwriting that someone had clearly put time and effort into perfecting. 

Beast Boy glanced back up at the screen in front of him, biting his lip. He scrolled up and down the barren profile page, reminding himself that the lack of pictures was probably just because the guy didn’t understand social media. When he finally clicked ‘accept,’ and no new information appeared on the page, his confidence in his conclusion began to waver. The only thing he had seemed to unlock was a single group picture of about a dozen men and women in lab coats. There wasn’t even a description attached to it. 

Beast Boy squinted at the picture for a moment. Galtry was easy enough to pick out--his black hair stood out in the center of the back row, where he towered over the other individuals with a toothless smile. Like he had a secret he couldn’t wait to share with them as soon as the photographer lowered the lens. 

Beast Boy scanned the other faces in the small crowd, not knowing what he was looking for, if anything. For a moment, his eyes came to rest on a man and woman standing in the row in front of Nicholas Galtry. His heart rate quickened for a moment as he blinked hard. He looked again at the two individuals. And with that, the sensation faded just as quickly as it had come. 

With a sigh, Beast Boy fell back into his chair, rubbing his face. For the past ten minutes he’d been repeating this pointless exercise. But you could only scroll through the same five pictures so many times. With a final cursory reread, he carefully folded up the letter and slid it into the desk drawer. 

After throwing some proper clothes on, Beast Boy headed out the door. If he couldn’t tell anyone about the letter, he could at least put some distance between himself and the piece of paper for a few hours. 

The moment he entered the hallway outside his room, his thoughts began to automatically reroute themselves. His stomach growled furiously, and he started toward the kitchen on autopilot. He could smell... _something_ cooking. And while his brain hadn’t quite decided whether or not it was actually something appetizing, his stomach wasn’t being choosy. 

Half expecting to catch Starfire whipping up some obscure Tamaranean delicacy, Beast Boy immediately stopped short when he realized it was anything but. 

Raven stood at the stove, her  back turned to him as she shuffled something in a pan. She was the only one in the room--and maybe that made sense, seeing as the sun was just now beginning to shine through the windows on the opposite end of the room.

Beast Boy glanced at the clock on the wall next to him. There was no universe where it made sense for him to be awake right now. But before he had the chance to reconsider his life choices, they were cemented in place for him.  

“You’re up...early,” Raven said, catching his eye. She had turned slightly to look at him, a hint of surprise--almost suspicion--in her eyes and her voice. As if his presence at this ungodly hour automatically meant that he was up to no good. 

Beast Boy shrugged, squinting past the bright yellow light. “Yeah. I’ve kinda been having trouble sleeping the past few nights,” he said, forcing a laugh. For some reason, the words felt more like a confession than a simple explanation, and it took him a moment to realize why. He wasn’t talking about the letter anymore.

Raven didn’t seem to notice his discomfort though and just rolled her eyes, turning back to the stovetop. 

Beast Boy bit his lip. He could shove a letter into the back of his drawer and walk away as many times as he wanted. But it was much harder to ignore conversations that you shared a kitchen with.  

“Actually, there’s something I wanted to...talk to you about,” he said suddenly, surprised at hearing the sound of his own voice. 

The awkward pause that followed was predictable. But the emptiness of it wasn’t. Beast Boy leaned uncomfortably against the door frame, unable to take his eyes off his friend. The silence may as well have been a tangible wall between them.

After a moment, Raven turned around again, giving him the same look of doubt and confusion. Except this time there was a hint of something a little more defensive mixed in.

“Oh really?” she said, the word slightly curling into a question at the very end. As if everything he’d said had been absolute gibberish and she was only speaking for the sake of doing so. The spatula in her hand remained poised in the air, mid-flip, like she couldn’t continue cooking until he gave her a response. 

Beast Boy didn’t know what that response was going to be. He began scratching his arm absentmindedly.

“About...you know...the other night?” he said, looking off to the side. “That was kinda shitty of me.” His heart rate began to pick up again. Hopefully she wouldn’t need any more clarification to know what he was referring to. Hopefully she wouldn’t make him have to say it out loud. 

But when Beast Boy finally worked up the courage to glance back at her a moment later, he noticed that Raven’s expression hadn’t changed. If anything, she only seemed more confused. She glanced around the kitchen randomly, as if doing so might give her some clue as to what the hell he was talking about.

“At the warehouse,” he blurted out, his voice embarrassingly frantic. Now the words came easier, but not because he was any more confident in what he had to say. Maybe it came from the realization that it was too late to turn back now. 

“When I...you know, pretended I was--” he caught himself, the word stopping clear in his throat. “When I pretended I was--passed out,” he said, knowing that that was the most generous way of putting it. “That was so crazy and stupid and I have no idea why I did it. I’m sorry I made you mad. I didn’t mean to. Please don’t hurt me.”

For a moment, Raven just continued to stare at him, their eyes locked in some kind of inexplicably powerful gaze. Like there was something else being exchanged between them that couldn’t be expressed with words. Beast Boy felt his stomach drop, but it wasn’t for any of the reasons he’d expected it might. A wave of something strange washed over Raven’s features. Something that seemed to smooth out the harsh lines in her brow and at the corners of her mouth. The shift was so subtle and fleeting that Beast Boy wasn’t entirely sure if he’d imagined it or not. 

“...Okay...” she said, once more sounding like he was speaking absolute nonsense. And maybe he was. She turned back around, continuing to shuffle whatever was in the pan without so much as batting an eye.

At this, Beast Boy let out a small sigh of relief. But the pit in his stomach remained. He stood in the doorway uncomfortably, unable to relax. There was no way it was going to be that easy.

“You mean...you’re not mad at me?” he hesitated. The short burst of relief he’d felt quickly turned to dread. He felt stupid just asking the question. 

But on the other end of the room, Raven merely shrugged. “Not any more than usual,” she said, flipping her concoction in the pan. “I mean, it was pretty obvious you were faking it.”

At this, Beast Boy paused. The same incredulous confusion he had seen in Raven’s face a moment earlier now reflected itself in his own. He began to open his mouth to contest her, but he didn’t know why. He closed it just as quickly.

Raven wasn’t the type of person who wore her heart on her sleeve. She was the type who kept everything locked away inside a box no one had the key to. A box that was buried ten feet deep at the edge of a cliff at the top of a mountain that sat in the center of a swirling lake of lava. And while it made deciphering her mood on a day to day basis nearly impossible, there was one advantage to it. Whatever she kept locked up in there was so unlike everything else about her that whenever it _did_ get loose, you knew it.  

He also knew that pressing Raven about her emotions was skating on paper thin ice. Luckily, she cut him off just before he fell through. 

“Save your breath,” she said, her back still turned. She slid the last contents of the pan onto a plate. “I already know you feel bad about it.” 

“You do?” Beast Boy said.

Raven turned around now, a plate of...something in her hand. She looked disappointed somehow, but not surprised. “The emotional roller coaster you’ve been on for the past seventy two hours hasn’t exactly been a solo ride.”

Beast Boy stood there for a moment, confused. Then his face started to feel the slightest bit warm. Of _course_ she knew. That was Raven 101: Intro to Raven. Raven for Dummies. Raven’s whole schtick. Her entire brand. 

“Oh. Right,” he fumbled, a wave of child-like embarrassment washing over him. “Yeah, I guess that would...make sense.”

Raven didn’t do or say anything in particular in response. And on the one hand, Beast Boy knew that should have been a good sign--or at least a comforting sign of normalcy. But there was something about the entire interaction that felt off. Like for once Raven’s avoidance stemmed from somewhere other than mere disinterest. Regardless of the bored expression on her face, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d merely slapped a bandaid over a bullethole. 

“Well, I guess since you already know I’m sorry...I’m just gonna...go,” he said, awkwardly shooting two finger guns toward the hallway behind him. He held the position for a moment, waiting for some sort of signal that their conversation had officially ended. The one he got was not the one he had been expecting.

“If you’re going, can you do me a favor?” Raven said suddenly.

Beast Boy froze just as he was beginning to turn around. Coming from Raven, a question like that usually went one general direction--the most popular being something along the lines of ‘ _Never speak to me again.’_

“Yeah?”

“Can you take these to Cyborg for me?” she said, half turning around with a plate stacked with...something in her hand. 

Beast Boy made his way toward her cautiously.

“What...is it?” he said, raising an eyebrow at the plate extended before him.            

“What does it look like?” Raven said curtly.

“It looks like that one time Starfire tried to make pancakes.” Beast Boy took the plate from her and picked up one of the layers of the concoction, prodding it with his finger. The pale, muddy mess just barely held its shape. 

Raven didn’t reply. She just stared at him with an increasingly displeased expression.

“Aren’t you more of a...waffle person?” he said, laughing a little. 

Raven sighed, arms crossed against her chest.

“Cyborg told me that I should try and get out of my comfort zone more,” she said at last. “So today I made pancakes.”

Beast Boy let the so called ‘pancakes’ fall sloppily back onto the plate below, wiping his hand on his shirt. “Maybe you should scoot back into the zone,” he said, eyeing the plate one more time. 

“Fine,” Raven said, swiping it back from him in an instant. “I’ll take them to him myself. Jackass.”

Plate in hand, she made her way toward the doorway at the opposite end of the room. The doorway Beast Boy had made a point not to walk through since last night...ever since he had set up--

Shit.

“Wait! Don’t go under the--!”

He started to extend a hand toward her, knowing she was already too far away for it to matter. Raven passed over the threshold without a care in the world—that is until she tripped the switch on the lower left side of it. 

In a moment of pure, paralyzing terror, Beast Boy watched as a gallon of slime fell from the ceiling above her, completely drenching her from head to toe.

He flinched, shrinking into himself as Raven held up her arms to examine whatever terrible substance she was now coated in. When she slowly turned to look at him, the shadowy sense of calm on her face was far more disturbing than any display of outright anger could have possibly been.

“I’m sorry—I—I didn’t mean...That was meant for--” Beast Boy stammered, knowing that it was already too late.

Raven’s eyes narrowed into vicious slits, glinting like those of a python ready to strike. 

For a split second, Beast Boy could have sworn they had started to change color. 

But the image quickly vanished as Raven closed her eyes, taking a deep but impatient breath. When she opened them again he felt only slightly less terrified.

“It was...an accident?” Beast Boy offered with a sheepish shrug and a nervous smile. But you didn’t have to be an empath to see that underneath it he was gritting his teeth.

Raven let a single beat pass before she opened her mouth to give him her reply. 

“ _You_ were an accident,” she said with a cold confidence. 

An oblong dark shadow appeared behind her, and with a single step over its threshold she was gone. 

Beast Boy was completely alone. Again. Which was why he nearly jumped when he turned to see Robin in the doorway behind him.

“Oh my God, you almost gave me a heart attack,” he panted, catching himself on the counter beside him.

“Sorry?” Robin said, his voice tinted with regret, but even more so with confusion. “I was just--” he looked around the now desolate kitchen, then glanced back at Beast Boy expectantly. ”Have you seen Raven? I thought I just heard her in here a second ago.”             

Beast Boy began to rub at the back of his neck, making a point of looking anywhere but at the site of Raven’s recent departure. “Maybe she’s...in her room?”

“Maybe,” Robin said, though he didn’t seem particularly pleased with Beast Boy’s answer. He sighed. “I was hoping to catch the two of you together. There are some things I want to--” He paused, looking over in the direction of where Raven had disappeared. “What is _that_?”

“What’s what?” Beast Boy said, refusing to follow his gaze. Refusing to acknowledge the green slime covering the kitchen floor behind him.

Robin looked downward, his hand raised to his temples. “Okay. Just...whatever it is, clean it up. Please? And when you’re done go find Raven and meet me outside by the picnic tables.” He glanced between Beast Boy and the mess one last time with a sigh. “Ten minutes.” And then he was gone.

It took nearly an entirely roll of paper towels to soak up the remaining goo. To Beast Boy’s satisfaction, there was only a very minimal green stain left on the tile by the time he was done. But that was the least of his problems. 

Robin rarely wanted to ‘talk’ just for the sake of making conversation. The last time he had asked to ‘talk’ to any of them, it had resulted in mandatory after hours training sessions for the entire group. But that still hadn’t been as bad as the time he’d changed the wifi password for a week after Cyborg’s online gaming obsession had gotten out of hand. 

But at the very least, whatever conversation awaited him with Robin was still ten minutes away. Unlike Robin’s request to find the girl he’d just dumped a bucket of slime on. Which, regrettably, required his immediate attention.

The walk to Raven’s room wasn’t long, but it felt infinite. Infinite in the way Beast Boy imagined walking death row must feel. When he finally turned the corner that brought her door into view, he was unsurprised to find it firmly shut. When he raised his hand to knock, he stopped himself. Or rather, the terrifying sounds on the other side of the door did. He could hear Raven cursing something under her breath, and for a moment he figured it might be best to just turn around and abandon the idea altogether. But there was one thing that scared him even more than Raven’s temperament, and it was waiting patiently for the two of them outside. 

“Uh...Raven?”

The hissing profanities came to an abrupt halt as an eerie silence filled the air. 

“I know you’re probably busy but--”

“What do you _want_?” 

“Uh...Robin wants to...talk to us,” Beast Boy replied, speaking as carefully as possible. “Outside. Right now.”

“God bless,” Raven said under her breath, her voice muted by steel door between them. 

Beast Boy heard another door within slam shut, followed by what could only be described as the sounds of frantic redecorating.

Suddenly the door flew open--and so did Beast Boy’s mouth. He grit his teeth, but it wasn’t enough to stop the snort-like laughter that escaped from behind his wavering smile. He took a deep breath and tried to think of every sad dog movie he’d ever seen.

Instead of hanging as straight as the daggers in her eyes, the strands of Raven’s hair curled around her face in frizzy purple waves. 

“Wow,” Beast Boy said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “Your hair looks--”

“Choose your next words _wisely_ ,” she growled.

Beast Boy swallowed hard, devouring his smile along with his words. 

“...Different?” 

Raven shot him a look, flipping up the hood of a jacket she had thrown on. 

“What does Robin want to talk about?” she said, pushing past him and taking the lead. 

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Beast Boy said, letting her do so silently.

Raven didn’t respond.

For the rest of the trip, Beast Boy made sure to keep a few feet between them as they walked. 

A cool gust of wind swept through his hair as he followed Raven out the front door. It was just cold enough that he began to wish he’d had a reason to grab a jacket as well. Some of the leaves were already starting to change color, a steady breeze testing their hold to the branches. In the distance, under one of the many shifting trees he spotted Robin, waiting with his back to them. 

Beast Boy risked a glance at Raven, who, surprisingly enough, returned the favor. A heavy silence hung between them as they shared a single moment of comradery. It was obvious to Beast Boy, and by the looks of it Raven too, that whatever they’d been arguing about moments before had been nothing. Nothing compared to what awaited them at that table.  

It was a long, silent walk down the hill. Robin didn’t so much as look up or say hello as they sat down opposite their leader. Beast Boy was too afraid to say anything and, well, Raven’s silence was a given.   

Robin sighed, his hands clasped together before him on the table. 

“Do either of you have any idea why I wanted to speak to--”

But as he lifted his eyes to look at them, he paused. The serious, angular lines in his face melting away as his eyes widened and his mouth parted slightly. 

“Raven...what happened to your hair?”

Raven turned to look at Beast Boy and then back at Robin, eyebrow raised. “Take a wild guess.”

“It was an accident,” Beast Boy said hastily, a hint of impatience in his voice. “I _said_ I was sorry.”

“Sorry for what? Being born?” Raven scoffed, crossing her arms. 

Just like that, the moment of comradery came and went.

Robin didn’t say a word--but his silence spoke louder than the two of them combined.

Beast Boy and Raven both fell quiet again, the unspoken truce momentarily reinstated. 

Robin let out a long sigh before finally opening his mouth to speak. 

“This. This is what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. His voice was calm, his words calculated. He raised his clasped hands to his mouth, as if carefully considering how he wanted to phrase his next words. “Look,” he said solemnly. “I know you two don’t always see eye to eye. That sometimes you have...different ways of approaching a situation.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Raven mumbled.

Beast Boy started to open his mouth before their leader cut in again. 

“...And that’s _fine_ ,” Robin continued. “It’s important to consider different points of view in a fight--having a greater perspective opens up more options and opportunities for success. But it doesn’t really work out so well when fighting over who’s idea is better takes priority over the target in front of you.” Here he paused, lowering his hands and slouching his shoulders. “I know I can’t stop you two from arguing over who gets the remote when we’re watching TV. And quite frankly I don’t care. But on the battlefield that kind of stuff can have very real consequences. Not just for our team, but for the people we’re trying to protect.” Here he paused again. “I know I wasn’t there for most of it, but I think I have a pretty good idea of what the fatal flaw was in our last battle. And I think you do too.”

This time Raven started to open her mouth to say something.

“Both of you,” Robin cut her off.

Raven closed her mouth, looking off to the side.

“All I’m saying,” Robin continued, “Is that the next time we’re in a fight—please—can you two _try_ and put your differences aside? For everyone’s sake.”

Beast Boy didn’t say anything. But that was only because Robin seemed to take the expression on his face as enough of an answer.

“Was there something you wanted to add to that, Raven?” Robin said, looking over at Raven now, who was still staring off into the distance, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

“No.”

Robin turned back to Beast Boy with a shrug. “Alright then,” he said, sighing one last time. “Just one more thing and I’ll let you two go. I want both of you to start thinking about how you could use your differences to an advantage—rather than the opposite. Beast Boy--”

Beast Boy sat upright. “Yeah?”

“I want you to tell Raven something she did well in that fight.”                        

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding me,” Raven groaned, her back still turned to the two of them.

“Raven, would you like to go first instead?” Robin questioned.

Raven remained silent, crossing her arms even tighter over her chest in response. 

“Take as long as you need,” Robin said, leaning back for the first time since they’d sat down. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Raven muttered something unintelligible under her breath. She looked up at the sky as if it would provide her with some sort of inspiration. Then she begrudgingly turned to look at Beast Boy.

He automatically tensed up the moment they made eye contact. 

Raven immediately looked away. “Your bumbling idiocy actually makes a pretty good distraction if the timing’s right,”

Robin raised an eyebrow at her, crossing his arms again.

“What?” Raven said defensively.

“Try again,” Robin said, his tone slightly more serious this time.

Raven paused for a moment. This time when she spoke she didn’t bother to address Beast Boy directly. Instead she just looked off into the distance beyond the yard. “Well...people are generally scared of tigers. So you have that going for you I guess.”

Robin sighed, but didn’t push her further. “Beast Boy, your turn.”

“Oh come on,” Beast Boy protested. “Are you seriously gonna give her that one? That’s such a cop out.”

“Well what am I supposed to do? Lie?” Raven said sharply, turning to face him.

“ _Alright,_ ” Robin said, situating himself to physically push them apart if necessary. “That’s enough. Beast Boy, it’s your turn,” he repeated.

Raven glared at him, inviting him to the challenge.

“Well you sure are good at scaring the shit out of people,” Beast Boy said, wrinkling his nose. “And you don’t even have to turn into anything to do it.”

Robin was silent for a long moment before he spoke next. “We’ll work on it,” he said, his tone slightly disappointed, but too exasperated to keep trying. He pushed himself up from the table in one swift movement and stood before them. “I have to go set up for our ten o’clock training regimen,” he announced, looking them both sternly in the eye. “Just...think about it, okay?” Robin didn’t wait for either of them to respond before taking his leave. 

When Robin was finally out of earshot, Beast Boy caught him rubbing his temples, muttering something to himself under his breath. At the top of the hill, he caught a glimpse of two more figures peeking through one of the tower windows. He immediately recognized Starfire and Cyborg peering through the glass pane. In the same moment he turned to look at them however, they flinched and ducked out of sight.

Beast Boy turned back to the table, head in his hands. “Thank God that’s over with,” he said aloud, not sure if he was really expecting Raven to reply.

“For now,” she said, getting to her feet. “At least until you do something stupid again.”

“Me?” Beast Boy narrowed his eyes. “You know that conversation was about both of us, right?”

Raven shook her head. “I don’t care what Robin said. My behavior toward you is strictly reactive.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s simple. You do something stupid, I react to it,” she said, matter-of-factly. “My actions are just a symptom of the disease.”

Beast Boy looked at her, one eyebrow cocked in questioning.

“ _You’re_ the disease,” she clarified curtly.

He crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. “That doesn’t make any sense. Even for you.”

Raven sighed. “You’re inherently self-sabotaging. No matter what it is you’re doing you always find a way to mess it up,” she said with a wave of her hand. “And that’s not my problem.”

“That’s not even--fuck!” Beast Boy exclaimed, his words cut short as a rush of air passed over his face and his right leg buckled under a small rut in the ground. He caught himself with his hands extended, now covered in mud.  

“I rest my case,” Raven said dismissively as she continued walking up the hill.

Beast Boy quickly got to his feet, wiping his hands on his shirt.

“Thanks for the hand,” he said, throwing Raven a taste of her own sarcasm.

Raven paused and turned around to look at him, a familiar look of apathy on her face. But suddenly her eyes widened and then narrowed again as her line of sight shifted to something just behind him. 

Beast Boy turned around to follow her gaze.

He didn’t see the truck at first, but the thrumming of the engine was enough to announce its approach. Without a clear driveway to follow, Beast Boy watched as the large brown vehicle pulled up next to the curb at the bottom of the hill. A lanky man hopped out of the driver’s seat, clipboard in hand. 

Raven was already halfway down the hill again. As she passed by him, Beast Boy felt the inexplicable urge to follow her. She stopped right before the strange man, who was already at the back of the truck, beginning to lift the hatch on the wide back door. 

“Can I help you?” she asked, towering over him as he leaned down to undo the lock.

The man looked up at the two of them, standing up straight. Now it was him who towered over them like a skyscraper. But it didn’t seem to change the dynamic.

“Yeah,” he said, clearly taken aback by Raven’s tone. He scanned over the clipboard in his hand. “I’m lookin’ for a Mr….” His words faded as he looked back up at the two of them once more. _Really_ looked at them. “Logan. Mr. Logan.” His eyes narrowed. “You know, Halloween’s still a month away.”

Beast Boy sighed. For as much as they did for the city, this was sometimes all the recognition they got. 

“What do you want?” Raven repeated, this time with a little more bite to the words. 

The man shot her an annoyed but cautious look. 

“I’m looking for a Mr. Logan,” he said, turning now to Beast Boy. “Do you kids know--”             

“No,” Raven interjected.

He looked down at the clipboard again with a frown, lifting up the first page to closer inspect the one beneath it. 

“You delivered a letter to him here the other day,” Raven continued. “You’ve got the wrong address.”

The man’s frown grew slightly more prominent at her words. “Look kid, I didn’t deliver any letter here. But this is the address I have. If he’s not here now, he must’ve been a...past resident,” the man said, looking suspiciously at the large T-shaped building before him. He shook his head. “And that’s not my department.” He let the papers fall back down on his clipboard, then extended it out into the space between the two of them. 

Raven snatched it from his hand. 

“If you have a complaint you can call the number on the bottom of the slip,” the man said, pulling a pen out of his pocket, which Beast Boy automatically took.

Before either of them could say anything more, there were two large boxes sitting at their feet. 

The man didn’t wait for Raven to return the clipboard--he didn’t so much as look down to see if she’d bothered to fill anything out. She hadn’t.

When she tried to shove it back into his hands, the man pulled away. “Keep it,” he said, muttering something afterwards that was muffled by the deafening sound of the truck door slamming shut. “It’s your problem now.”

The engine revved, the truck disappearing twice as quickly as it had come. Almost as if the driver were abandoning a ticking time bomb. 

For a reason he couldn’t quite place, the man’s hurried retreat sent a shiver down Beast Boy’s spine. Whatever was inside those boxes was clearly enough of a burden that this man was willing to cut corners to get rid of them. Knowing who they were addressed to only heightened his uneasiness.

“Great,” Raven said aloud, looking down at the boxes. But she only looked at them before letting out another sigh and turning on her heel again.

“Where are you going?” Beast Boy asked, knowing the answer already.

“Uh...inside?” Raven said, clipboard in hand.

“We can’t just leave this stuff out here,” Beast Boy protested, gesturing to the boxes at his feet. But as he said it, he realized it would be hard to explain _why_ they probably shouldn’t abandon them. “I mean...we don’t know what’s inside. Maybe it’s something really important,” he added hastily, not sure how that would make a difference to Raven.

“Important to someone else,” she said, her disinterest in the matter unsurprising.

“If we leave this shit out here we’re just gonna hear about it from Robin later,” Beast Boy offered, hoping to convince her from a different angle. 

Raven sighed once more, this time in begrudging acceptance of the fact that _he_ knew that _she_ knew that he was right. 

“Fine. But don’t expect me to deal with it once it's on the doorstep.” One of the larger boxes in front of her floated into the air, shrouded in shadow. “That's ‘not my department,’” she said, air quotes included. 

Beast Boy looked down at the remaining box sitting at his own feet. He kicked it gently with his sneaker. It was definitely as heavy as it looked. For a moment he just stared at it in bewilderment, trying to think of any animal that would make the job of carrying it any easier. But it wasn’t so simple when you realized how few of them had opposable thumbs.  

“You okay?” Raven said suddenly, knocking him from his daze. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Fine.”

“Here, I can just—“

“No, I got it,” he said, waving her off as he bent down and prepared the lift the package up from its bottom. He took a deep breath and lurched it into the air, barely catching it against his chest as it settled in his arms. “See? It’s no problem—“ he choked, instantly feeling his arms wobble as the cardboard slid under his fingers.  Just as the last bit of his grip started to give, he felt the weight instantly disappear altogether as the box ascended several inches in the air. 

Beast Boy tried to catch his breath without gulping in the air he knew he needed. When he looked up, he caught Raven looking at him again, a box now floating on either side of her. 

“You know, Robin literally just lectured us about working together,” she said, unfaltering. “If you need help you can just ask..”

Beast Boy paused for a moment. The way she had phrased it, he couldn’t decide if her offer came from a place of genuine kindness or merely from a lack of faith in him. Maybe both.

He wiped his burning fingertips on his pant legs absentmindedly. “It wasn’t _that_ heavy,” he muttered.

“Off to a good start then,” Raven said, the facade of kindness evaporating as quickly as it had come. She turned on her heel and started back up to the tower, the two boxes, along with a pouting Beast Boy lagging behind her. 

But the closer they got to the entrance of the towering building, the more Beast Boy’s feet began to drag. And this time it had nothing to do with the physical effort of the incline. As he trudged behind Raven, he found himself staring at the two boxes again. What exactly could be in them that made them so heavy? Just like the letter, they had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Just like the letter, there wasn’t any return address on them. But he knew there was only one person they could be from. A pit began forming in his stomach again. And again he couldn’t give any one reason why. He tried desperately to twist the facts into a shape that made sense.

Well, he thought to himself, at least it had only been two boxes and not an entire truckload.

 

` ***

 

With every passing hour, the doorbell rang on cue like a grandfather clock. Trucks of all shapes and sizes passed by their door, toting mysterious packages just as diverse. The onslaught of deliveries brought all training to a standstill after Robin gave up trying to simultaneously run drills and answer the door every three minutes. When they began to run out of space in the entryway, moving boxes into the living room became a full time job. 

As the chaos grew, so did the pit in Beast Boy’s stomach. While Robin directed traffic, Raven begrudgingly moved the stacks of boxes about the room. Meanwhile, Cyborg and Starfire continuously traversed the labyrinth of cardboard like two kids on Christmas morning. Every box they carried in received a hearty shake, just enough for them to throw out a guess as to what could be inside. Their guesses were as absurd as the game itself, seeing how Starfire continued to insist upon the criminality of opening ‘someone else’s mail’. Each time she made this announcement, she met eyes with Beast Boy, giving him a not so subtle wink that made him tense up all the more. Luckily no one else seemed to notice.  

He didn’t know what was more unnerving--the great unknown of the packages’ contents or the sheer number of them. The common room was beginning to look more like a small warehouse, waist deep in packing supplies on every side. 

Just after they finished hauling three more crates inside, the doorbell rang again, this time presenting the first unwrapped delivery—a brand new, shiny red moped. 

“Beast Boy, look! It is what you have always wanted!” Starfire said, excitedly pointing at the scooter, complete with a large red ribbon wrapped around the handles.

“Well I guess now we know who _Garfield_ is,” Raven said with a wry smile and a glance in his direction. 

Beast Boy froze for a moment. But when he met Raven’s gaze and saw the smirk on her face, he allowed himself a cautious sigh of relief. Raven’s sarcasm and seriousness were sometimes barely distinguishable—but this time she’d been joking. Some joke.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the room understood the intricacies of Raven’s humor.

Like a gunshot going off, Starfire suddenly burst out crying. Everyone naturally turned to face her in alarm, including Beast Boy. 

“Star, what’s wrong?” Robin asked desperately, running over to try and calm her down. 

“I am so sorry,” she said through a broken sob. “I did not mean to give away your secret.”

“What...secret?” Raven said slowly.

Through stifled sniffles, Starfire opened her mouth to explain.

“It’s not--” Beast Boy tried to interject. But it was too late.

“The other morning when I was preparing for my daily blogilates, I caught Beast Boy reading the strange letter we had received in the mail,” Starfire blurted out, speaking so fast she began tripping over her own words. “At first I thought he had simply allowed curiosity to get the better of him, but then he confided in me that _he_ was the Garfield in question, and I promised I would not reveal his true identity to _anyone_ , but now I have done so without even realizing it and I am sorry!”

Beast Boy covered his face with both his hands, closing his eyes tight behind them. The skin beneath his palms began to feel slightly warmer in comparison. Sure, Starfire was a great friend, but definitely not the most calculating.

The room fell silent for a moment. Then, regrettably, the silence was broken with a familiar laugh.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Raven said, suddenly sounding much more animated than she had a moment before. 

If Beast Boy had suspected his face was turning red a moment ago, now he knew it without a doubt.

“Is that...true?” Robin asked, slightly concerned, but mostly just confused.

There may as well have been crickets chirping in the beat between.

“Well...it’s not... _not_ true,” Beast Boy said with a sheepish smile. 

Robin frowned, unamused. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he said, gesturing to the packages. 

“I dunno,” Beast Boy blurted defensively. “I thought it had to be a mistake or something. Seriously. Nobody’s called me that in years.”

“Hold up,” Cyborg chimed in, peeking out from over a stack of boxes. “Does that mean we can finally open all of this stuff?” An excited grin spread over his face as an exacto knife sprung from his finger.

“Wait,” Robin said, lifting his hand in warning. “Everybody just slow down for a second.” He stood up straight and took a deep breath to clear the air. “Even if all of that’s true, we still don’t know who they’re from or what’s inside them.”

“Well if it was a bomb we probably would’ve figured that out by now,” Raven said grimly.

Robin shot her a quick look before clearing his throat and returning to his monologue. “More importantly, it’s not our mail to open,” he said, shifting his gaze to Beast Boy. 

There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone followed Robin’s stare. Beast Boy bit his lip. 

“Oh please,” Raven scoffed. “We’re talking about the same person who ripped open the Fruit Loops in the parking lot for his special ‘collectors edition’ Star Wars spoon.” 

Beast Boy shot Raven a look, but his heart wasn’t in it. He knew she was right. He had no idea what making that leap would entail, but, for better or worse, the course had been set as soon as the first package had arrived. Cyborg had always told him he was a model ‘people pleaser,’ and Beast Boy was starting to understand all too well what he had meant. At least in this case it worked to his friend’s advantage.

“I...guess...we can open them,” Beast Boy said after a moment, the words stinging the back of his throat. 

“Hell yeah!” Cyborg exclaimed, pointing at a package he had seemingly set aside for this very purpose. “Ooooh, open this one first!”

The package he identified was one of the few that hadn’t been delivered in a box but wrapped in rough paper and heavy twine. It had to be for how odd of a shape it was--tall and narrow with jagged edges protruding randomly on all sides. The points seemed so sharp underneath that it was a wonder the paper hadn’t ripped on its own.

“You can open it,” Beast Boy offered with an uneasy smile. “I mean--since you want to so bad. It doesn’t really matter to me.”

“You sure?” Cyborg asked, his expression shifting suddenly from excitement to hesitation. 

“No, really. We already have all of them, we might as well open them. Just go for it man,” he said, his anxiety ushering him forward in the way it always did when he was about to do something he knew he would regret. 

Beast Boy took a seat down on the couch as Cyborg began to cut through the paper. He tried his best to look as bored as possible--but it was hard _not_ to stare at the hideous object that revealed itself as the paper fell away.  

A tall, humanoid figure stood before them, bent into a uniquely inhuman shape—its back hunched, arms craning over its head. The face strayed even further from any sense of proper anatomy. The nose, wide and flat, ran up to the figure’s forehead. Two large, perfectly spherical eyes adorned either side of the bridge. But the mouth was the worst. Open wider than it should have been, the lips were pulled back, frozen in a scream. In truth, it was the most human part of the visage--until you noticed the prominent canines and short fangs that jutted out along the bottom.

Beast Boy ran his tongue over his teeth—a nervous habit he’d never really been able to shake. Especially for as long as he’d had his own pseudo-fangs. He closed his mouth tight and tried not to think about it.

“Uh…” Cyborg said, mouth agape. “What...is this?”

“Racist Hollywood propaganda?” Raven offered with a disgruntled shrug.

“But why is it here?” Cyborg said, furrowing his brow as he stared at the figure. 

It wasn’t long before his gaze, along with everyone else’s, shifted from the statue over to Beast Boy again.

“What?” he said, backing slightly into the couch. 

“It was sent to _you_ , Beast Boy,” Robin said, gesturing to the figure. “You don’t have any idea what it is?”

Beast Boy took a deep breath and looked at the statue again. It was painful to admit that, in some corner of his mind, the image of it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. But not in a way that gave him any solace. Rather, it was familiar in the way that bits and pieces of nightmares sometimes gnawed their way into the waking world. A bitter after-taste from a sweet drink. 

“No. Not a clue.”

The room remained silent, and Beast Boy began to wonder if there was too much confidence in his voice for it to sound convincing. 

“Perhaps we should open some of the other mystery gifts?” Starfire said suddenly, a bright smile on her face as she lifted another smaller box in her arms.  On the side, bold black letters warned the recipient to ‘handle with care.’ “It is possible they will reveal further context regarding the situation.”

Robin just looked at Beast Boy again, as if waiting for some sort of signal that it was fine to continue. 

“Sure,” he said, figuring it was best to stick to one word answers. 

Starfire grinned, gripping the box on either side. Despite it being wrapped tightly around with heavy duty packing tape, she denied Robin’s offer of scissors. “Eugh! Ahhhh!” she grunted, ripping the cardboard apart in one swift motion. Packing peanuts flew from the box like oversized confetti, as a single object clattered to the floor.

When it finally settled flat, it was Raven who was closest to lean over and pick it up.

“Oh joy,,” she said, her tone as flat as Starfire’s was elated. “More garbage.”

“I wish to see!” Starfire said, snagging the item from Raven’s grip. 

As she did, she turned just enough for Beast Boy to really get a look at what had come out of the box. 

It was a mask. 

That was easy enough to tell. But it wasn’t anything resembling the simple, sleek adornments superheroes used to ‘protect their identities’. This mask was a work of art in and of itself. Beige matted fur that must have once been as soft as silk lined the edges of the full face covering. The chiseled features were harsh and angular, but carefully crafted. From the slope of the brow to the perfectly sculpted lips, every inch of it seemed uncomfortably lived-in. Even the eyes, which were nothing more than two narrow slits of inky darkness, seemed like they might blink back at any moment. He knew the thought was ridiculous. But it was enough to distract him from the chaos for a moment--a moment that would cost him dearly. 

“Boo!” 

Beast Boy jumped in his seat, unable to hold back an audible gasp. His stomach lurched as turned to meet Starfire’s eyes underneath the mask, mere inches from his face. 

Starfire merely laughed, lowering it to the side.

Beast Boy quickly conjured a playful smirk as he retaliated with the nearest couch pillow.

Starfire ducked out of the way with lightning speed, throwing one right back at him in the span of a second.

Beast Boy’s reflexes were notably slower, and the cushion hit him square in the face with the force of a battering ram.

The room at once filled with a familiar light again as Cyborg--even Robin--let loose a laugh at the scene. For a split second, the mystery before them seemed of secondary importance to the battle that had been declared.

But as Beast Boy lowered the pillow from his face, the scene before him began to shift again. Something wasn’t right.

He was being watched. He could feel it in the strange stillness of the air. 

Instinctively, he glanced up at the large statue Cyborg had unwrapped. Then over at the mask, now dangling in Starfire’s right hand. Neither seemed to be staring back at him now.

He turned to look in the one remaining corner of the room. And it was there that he found the undeniable source of the sensation. 

Raven wasn’t laughing. Which felt ironically out of place, considering the joke had been at his expense. Her gaze was steady--at least until the moment he caught her. In an instant her eyes fell to the floor again.

Beast Boy followed her stare for only a moment, noting how it now fell on a box near her feet. Close enough that she must have intentionally pulled it aside.

“Open this one next!!” Starfire exclaimed, shoving another box into Beast Boy’s lap. 

He blinked hard, looking down at the package. 

The audience had swapped places. Now all eyes were on him again--except for the one pair that wasn’t. 

 

***

 

With the next dozen boxes they opened, Beast Boy began to notice a pattern. The objects ranged from torn fabric scarves to chipped clay statues and long strings of beads, their colors worn to the palest hues. It all reminded him of when Robin had brought them to the Natural History museum last time they were in DC. Except these items weren’t in titanium glass cases or hanging in the souvenir shop window. He wasn’t sure that was where they belonged either. But he knew they didn’t belong in Titan’s Tower.

As Starfire and Cyborg worked together to pull another package into the living room for unboxing, Beast Boy watched as Robin stood and made his way over to him. He had no idea why, but he suddenly tensed up as their leader took a seat next to him.

“What’s up?” Beast Boy asked, trying to lean back casually.

“Look. I don’t want this to come off the wrong way...but I just want to ask you honestly,” Robin said, leaning in closer as he spoke. “Are you _sure_ this stuff is really yours?” he asked solemnly. 

Beast Boy flinched. He wasn’t exactly sure how to answer. 

Robin’s tone was far from threatening--if anything it only seemed like he was trying to help. But the question was more complicated than Robin knew. 

Beast Boy was pretty sure it _was_ his stuff. But then again, he was pretty sure it _really_ wasn’t.

“I think it is,” Raven said suddenly.

The two both looked up at her, sitting quietly on the other side of the room. So quietly, Beast Boy had almost forgotten she was still there.

“What makes you say that?” Robin asked, getting to his feet again. 

She nodded vaguely toward the box at her feet. The one Beast Boy had noticed her staring at earlier. 

Now that the dust had settled, he was able to look at it clearly. It wasn’t anything special as far as he could tell. Just a plain cardboard box about two feet square in dimension. There was only one thing that set it apart to any degree. While it was true that all of the other packages had been sealed with generous amounts of tape or twine, this box was nearly made of the stuff. Even the tape was taped down--not just for extra security, but because there might not have been much of a box without it. 

In that instant, a large crash came from down the hallway. The same hallway Cyborg and Starfire had disappeared down moments before.  

Their three remaining teammates automatically looked up in the direction of the noise to find Cyborg peeking around the doorframe.

In the distance, Starfire cursed aloud, her words audible but unintelligible. 

Cyborg did a double take behind him before addressing them. “Uh...I can fix that,” he said with a smile.

Starfire appeared behind him with her hands behind her back, her face flushed with embarrassment. Her glance bounced around the room spontaneously before landing on the one unopened package that remained within it. Her eyes widened instantly at the sight, sheer excitement once more reigning supreme.

“Oh?” she said, flying over to the box in question. “Raven. I did not realize you had also picked a gift for Beast Boy to open!”

“I didn’t,” Raven said flatly.

Starfire raised an eyebrow. “Well...may I open it for him then?” she said, looking at Beast Boy expectantly. 

“Sure,” he shrugged, surprised she was still bothering to ask permission.

“Excellent!” Starfire said, with a level of sincerity only she could pull off. She gripped the package on either side and lifted it into the air. After a moment of staring at the layers upon layers of tape, lips pursed in contemplation, she smiled as her eyes began to glow a wicked green.   

“Errggh....Ah!” she cried, ripping the box open with her bare hands, tape and all.

Among the copious packing peanuts, several items tumbled out like prizes from a pinata.

Suddenly, Raven sat up, eyes wide. She extended her hand toward the blur of objects. The contents began to glow, and, as if moving in slow motion, came to an abrupt halt just before clattering to the floor. 

“Y’know...we _have_ scissors,” Cyborg said flatly, raising his hand again.

“But this way is _much_ more exciting,” Starfire smiled, cradling the cardboard carnage in her arms. A well-meaning but terrifying energy sparkled in her eyes. 

Raven lowered her hand as the items slowly settled on the cushion of styrofoam peanuts below. As she did, Beast Boy rose from his seat, making his way toward the pile as if drawn by a magnetic force. He crouched down, picking something up at random. The item was instantly recognizable--and that made it all the more out of place in a room littered with mysterious statues and pottery.

The spherical object was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Inside, white flakes swirled around a simple scene. A miniature plastic lion paraded mid-stride through the globe on a backdrop sandy grasses and flat topped trees. Along the bottom rim, a few plastic letters spelled out ‘Pretoria Zoo’. After a moment, the flecks settled at the bottom, covering the ground in white. It briefly occurred to him that the savannah was a nonsensical backdrop for the souvenir. 

“A...snowglobe?” Robin said aloud, his brow furrowed.

“What’s that doing in here?” Cyborg said.

“I don’t know,” was all Beast Boy could manage to say. And it was true. He had no idea what it was doing there.

The room fell silent again. And Beast Boy realized that this time the silence had centered around him--not just the thing he was holding. 

“Is...something wrong, Beast Boy?” Robin asked.

“What? No,” Beast Boy said distractedly, shaking his head. “It’s just...a snowglobe...from the Pretoria Zoo.” The observation seemed innocent enough, but the sound of the name made him flinch.

“Pretoria?” Starfire repeated.

“It’s a city,” Beast Boy said curtly, as he set the snowglobe off to the side. “In the northern part of South Africa.” He reached out toward the pile in front of him and fished out a few water-stained National Geographic magazines. He propped himself up against the couch and opened one up. But it was difficult to pretend the pages in front of him demanded more attention than the looks on his friends’ faces.  

“How do you know that?” Cyborg asked suddenly, breaking the awkward silence that had immediately returned.

Beast Boy just shrugged, flipping through the magazines even faster. “Because...I’ve been there.”

“What do you mean you’ve been there?” Robin pressed.

Beast Boy looked down at the open magazine in his lap. He bit his lip, pouring all of his concentration into feigning interest in an article about submarines.

“I mean I’ve been there. When I was a kid. The zoo wasn’t that far from my house,” he said, terrified at the thought of looking up and meeting his friends’ eyes. But the fear only made the words spill out faster.

“I mean, we weren’t really there most of the time, so I only got to actually go once. My parents probably spent more time at the house when they were still teaching at the university, but after they pulled me out of school to travel we mostly just used it for storage.”

A silence more deafening than any of his words filled the room.

“Okaaaay,” Cyborg said slowly. “Is it just me, or is that a lot of information I feel like I should’ve already known? Anybody?” 

As he spoke, Beast Boy noticed that Starfire had leaned down and grabbed something else out of the pile on the floor. It seemed to be a picture frame, the back stand bent horribly out of shape.  
“Are these the parents of which you speak?” she hesitated, turning the frame around for Beast Boy to see.

He froze. In an instant, Beast Boy recognized where the picture had been taken. The O.R. Tambo International Airport--just outside of the where the terminals split between international and domestic flights. 

It took him a moment longer to recognize the three strangers who smiled back at him.

On the far left, a woman with pale skin and dull, brown hair draped her arm around the person in the middle. Leftover strands fell lazily on either side of her face, the rest of the mane  pulled up in a bun at the back of her head. Parallel to her was a man with slight shoulders and hair that must have once been dark as night. Like the woman opposite him, he looked into the camera with a warm smile as he completed the arm-link chain binding the three of them together.

The only person whose smile felt real was the person that filled the gap between them. A young boy--no more than ten or eleven--who’s grin was twice as wide, but only half as poised. His eyes were wide and bright like his mother’s, but in every other regard he was the spitting image of his father.   

“No way,” Cyborg said, grabbing the picture from Starfire. “They can’t be. ‘Cause that would mean--”

“The small human at the forefront is...Beast Boy?” Starfire said at last.

The silence that fell over the room once more had by this point become all too familiar. 

Beast Boy felt his stomach drop.

“I thought you said you were born with your powers,” Robin said, bewildered.

“Did I?” Beast Boy said, unsure of where he should be looking. He wished he could just disappear.

More silence. Terrible, _awful_ silence.

“Well that is not important!” Starfire suddenly burst out. Everyone turned to look at her now, shaken out of their stupor. “Regardless of the change in your appearance, your adorableness has stayed much the same,” she exclaimed, flying over to embrace him in a huge bear hug. 

Though he knew Starfire meant well, Beast Boy couldn’t help but flinch in her arms--and not just because of his friend’s sheer strength.

“So...do you want us to call you Garfield now, or...?” Cyborg trailed off. There was a hint of teasing in his voice, but another sense of hesitation still lingered.

“Oh absolutely!” Starfire burst out in response. “It is much faster than saying Beast Boy.”

“It’s _literally_ not,” Raven said abruptly.

Following the conversation around the room, Beast Boy glanced over his shoulder in her direction. To his surprise, Raven was now holding the picture frame, studying it intently. 

“Then we can shorten it!” Starfire instantly added.

Beast Boy bit his lip, unsure of the consequences of responding. 

“My parent’s only really called me Garfield when they were mad at me,” he said, half to himself. “Usually I just went by Gar.”

“Excellent!” Starfire burst out again, her energy only growing exponentially. But it seemed a bit much, even for her. “I will begin preparations for the ceremony right away!” 

“Ceremony?”

“Of course! On my planet, changing one’s name is a momentous occasion,” she continued. “The event not only symbolizes a change in who you are--but who you wish to become.”

“But I’m not really changing it,” Beast Boy hazarded. “I mean, it’s always technically been my name.”

“Yes. But reclamation can also be a form of change,” starfire said, pointedly sticking in her finger in the air. “It is about discovering the version of yourself that is closest to your truth.”

There was another silence. And for the first time that night, it wasn’t in response to anything Beast Boy had said or done. 

“Well on that note…” Raven said, getting to her feet. “I’m gonna go discover the version of me that’s unconscious in my bed right now.”

“Raven’s right...it’s getting late,” Robin added. “I’m sure Beast Boy’s tired too.”

“Oh,” Starfire said bashfully.  “Of course.”

“But...you _are_ gonna tell us about all of this stuff later, right?” Cyborg said, raising an eyebrow at Beast Boy. 

Beast Boy paused. Was he? 

“Yeah, sure. Maybe tomorrow.”

The statement felt hollow and heavy at the same time. 

As everyone exchanged ‘Goodnights,’ Raven extended the picture frame out to him. 

“Here,” she said, keeping an arms length between them.

“Oh. Thanks,” Beast Boy said, though ‘thankful’ wasn’t exactly how he would describe how he felt. Regardless, he took it, hoping she couldn’t feel his reluctance on the other end of the exchange. 

For as much as he wanted to let go, he held on, gripping the frame tightly all the way back to his room. Once inside, he flicked on every light in the space and shut the door behind him. He turned the lock the wrong direction on his first try—that was how infrequently he used it. But right now it seemed uncomfortably necessary.

The picture from the airport immediately took up residence at bottom of the sock drawer. As Beast Boy slid the drawer shut, he very briefly considered more permanent solutions. It wouldn’t be hard to burn the image to ashes. He knew right where they kept the matches in the kitchen. But the thought quickly came and went, nothing more than a passing fantasy. 

Beast Boy lay down on his bed. He let out a long, exhausting sigh--one he’d been holding in all night. But it didn’t seem to steady the pounding in his chest as he’d hoped it might. Instead, it just made him all the more aware of how difficult the action was. It felt like there was a rubber band caught in the back of his throat holding something back. In the past few hours, breathing had become an intentional action. And he guessed it would remain that way for many more.

Sleep was difficult, if not impossible. The hours passed like minutes, the minutes like hours. Which of course explained why the knock on his door ripped Beast Boy’s next breath straight from his chest. He bolted upright, clutching the pillow he had been tossing around on for the past hour. He glimpsed his reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room and ran his fingers through his disheveled hair before getting up to answer the call. 

The sound of the lock turning felt just as deafening as the knocking, though he knew it couldn’t have made more than a small click. He pulled the door open just a crack at first, having the sudden thought that an axe murderer might be waiting on the other side. 

Who he found was even more of a shock.

“Raven? What’re you doing here?” he whispered. The sliver of light that crept into the hallway illuminated her face, which was scrunched up in groggy disgust. 

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Uh...right now?” Beast Boy said, still gripping the door.

Raven rolled her eyes and pushed past him into the room. 

Beast Boy stood frozen in place as a million tiny alarms suddenly went off in his head. 

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a direct violation of one of the many unspoken rules he’d come to establish with Raven. Section 3 Article B—entering each other’s rooms. Of course, the law mainly existed to keep Beast Boy _out_ . He had never dreamed that he’d have to worry about Raven coming _in_. 

She stepped inside silently, not beyond a foot or two from the threshold. Just barely enough for Beast Boy to close the door behind her.

He assumed Raven would naturally explain why she was there. But when a long moment of silence was all that followed, he realized that maybe that was too big of an assumption.

“Sooo…..” he droned on, avoiding eye contact. “What’s...up?”

Raven remained completely silent. She looked tired. And maybe angry. Silent, tired, and angry. The three worst things Raven could be--all rolled into one.

“Is this some kind of joke to you?” Raven sneered.

“You haven’t really given me any reason to assume it’s not.”

“Yeah, because I definitely just came by in the middle of the night to say hi,” she retorted.

“And I’m a shapeshifter not a mindreader, Raven,” Beast Boy said, crossing his arms and leaning against the door behind him.

Raven mirrored the gesture, hunched in agitation. “Look. It’s late. I’m _tired._ And I’m not gonna ask you if you wanna ‘ _talk about it_ ’ or anything like that. But if you’re gonna be all angsty can you do it...quietly?”

Beast Boy wasn’t sure exactly what expression came across his face, but Raven’s next remark was enough of a hint. 

“Oh, don’t give me that look. You know _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

“Uh...not _really_ ,” he protested.

Raven closed her eyes tight, lifting a hand to her temple. “Okay. You’re in denial. That’s fine. The first time I was willing to let it slide, but two nights in a row is pushing it.” She opened her eyes again, looking straight at him. “It’s three in the goddamn morning, and I feel like I’m strapped to a chair watching the Titanic sink on a loop.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me,” Beast Boy shrugged, unduly proud of himself for getting the word in when he did.

“Yeah, it is. _Yours_ ,” Raven threw back.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Beast Boy said, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. “ _No one_ ever knows what you’re talking about.”

Raven raised an eyebrow in doubt. She looked over his shoulder into his room. “Does it have something to do with that picture? Or the snowglobe or something?” 

Beast Boy felt a wave of heat rush through him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“How would I know?” 

“I guess you wouldn’t,” he said curtly, surprised at the sudden shift of tone in his own voice. 

“Whatever,” Raven mumbled, the frustration in her voice replaced with pure exhaustion. “Just figure it out, okay?” She stepped toward the door, taking the liberty of cracking it open to see herself out. Just before she did, she turned one more time to look at him. “Oh. And next time maybe consider the implications of lying to an empath.”  

Beast Boy bit his lip. “Maybe I will,” he said defiantly, realizing two beats too late that the response made no sense.

Raven just stared at him for one second more. “You’re impossible,” she muttered, shaking her head. And with that she quietly, but firmly, closed the door behind her.


End file.
